Escape From Camp Half Blood
by Asilda
Summary: Sequel to The Death God Alliance. Nico, Percy, Sadie, and Carter must work fast to prevent another inter-pantheon incident when mysterious deaths start occurring at Camp Half-Blood right after the Kanes are accidentally picked up in a demigod extraction.
1. Chapter 1

1

Carter and Sadie were running for their lives, and the worst part about that was that it was nothing new.

"We'll talk with the curator," huffed Sadie as she ran, somehow still managing to be sarcastic. "He might know something that can help us. His exhibit's full of scrolls about Egyptian family trees. There's no chance he might actually be a member of the House of Life in disguise!"

"Shut it, Sadie," said Carter. "We had no reason to think he was!"

"Oh come on! Haven't you ever watched The Mummy?"

"Less talking, more running, both of you!" said Bast sharply. "This way!"

The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History was crowded, as was to be expected. It was spring in Washington DC, so the city was full of tourists there to see the cherry blossoms, school groups on their spring field trips, and families whose kids were out for spring break. At first Carter thought that the crowds were a problem, but he quickly realized that Bast was making them work in their favor.

"Coming through!" shouted the goddess as she cut through the packed lobby. "Sorry! We're going to miss our bus! 'Scuse us, coming through!"

Their pursuers, a group of large, burly men who hadn't yet stashed their staffs in the Duat, did not have as easy of a time. Carter glanced back over his shoulder just in time to see one of them trip over a child who started screaming, then the kid's mother advanced on him, giving the House of Life freak a piece of her mind.

"Carter, come on!"

They burst out the main doors and kept running down the steps. "You two keep running," ordered Bast. "Get to the monument and get out of here. I'll hold them off."

"But Bast –" protested Sadie.

"Child," said Bast, her eyes glittering wickedly. "Do you really think they'll have an easy time catching a cat on a busy street?" With that, she changed into her other form. One moment she was a statuesque knockout of a woman, the next she was a four legged feline, complete with collar and arched back.

"Let's go, Sadie!" said Carter, grabbing his sister's hand to drag her along.

Sadie immediately yanked her hand away. "I don't need you to hold my bloody hand, Carter!" she said in that ill-tempered way of hers, but she followed him.

There was a convenient row of tour buses lined up against the curb. Carter wove between two of them, then kept running down the street, keeping the line of buses between himself and the museum doors so he and Sadie would be out of sight to anyone exiting the museum.

"That cat! There!"

"It's the goddess! Follow it!"

"What if we ambush them from behind?" asked Sadie. "While they're distracted I could wrap them up with bandages so tight they –"

"No," said Carter. "Bast told us to get out of here, so we're getting out of here. She doesn't need our help. Not with a bunch of lug-heads like them."

"Lug-heads?" asked Sadie. "Who says that?"

"Just come on!"

The siblings raced down the street, away from the museum. The Washington monument loomed before them on the other side of the mall. If they could just get there, they'd be home free, provided that the House of Life hadn't contacted its New York agents to make sure someone was waiting for them at the obelisk back in Central Park.

"Sadie," he said, "I just thought of something."

"That's very nice, Carter. I'm happy for you," muttered Sadie.

"I'm serious! We shouldn't use the portal to get back to New York," he said.

"And why the heck not?"

"Because we're getting too predictable," he said. "Remember what happened the last time we portalled to Central Park?"

Sadie groaned. "How could I forget?" she asked. "It's not every day we set a prophecy that'll destroy the world into motion, though meeting cute, dark haired, emo Death Boys is starting to become commonplace!"

Carter almost rolled his eyes but fought the urge. To be fair, he'd kind of been asking for a response like that, having phrased that question the way he did.

A month and a half ago, they'd also been running for their lives, trying to get away from agents of the House of Life, who were doing their damnedest to stop the Kanes from recruiting others with the blood of the pharaohs, so that they could revive the old ways. It didn't matter to the House of Life freaks that a giant chaos snake was going to destroy the world if they failed. They'd chased Sadie and Carter out of Seattle, and had agents waiting for them at the obelisk in Central Park when they'd portaled through.

Sadie and Carter had run into a strange, skinny boy with dead black eyes and hair to match, as they'd tried to escape. A boy they later learned was called Nico diAngelo. Nico was the son of the Greek Lord of the Underworld, Hades, and had an arsenal of amazing, if creepy powers, as well as a strong sense of right and wrong. He'd immediately seen the contradiction in an agent of the House of Life having a jackal as a familiar, as a jackal was a symbol of death, and decided to set things right by sending said jackal to his father's realm, so that his pet dog Cerberus could use it as a chew toy. At least that's what he claimed his reason for getting involved was. In truth, Carter and Sadie both knew it was because it hadn't been hard to see who the bad guys in that situation were. Nico had stood up for them even though he didn't even know them, and had tried to protect them. The House of Life freaks had mistaken him as a godling, not knowing he was a demigod. His powers seemed a lot like necromancy to them, and so they'd tried to banish him with the Ribbons of Hathor. On any other demigod, those ribbons would have done a big fat lot of nothing. Their power was some sort of life essence, which wouldn't have hurt a normal demigod, but Nico was a death god's son. The spark which kept him alive was closer to the power that animated the corpses he raised than the stuff that kept everyone else alive, and so the ribbons had just about killed him.

Nico's soul was actually sent to the Egyptian underworld, where he met Anubis in the Hall of Judgement. Anubis hadn't exactly been pleased, because demigod souls weren't his jurisdiction. Carter remembered the jackal headed god as being kind of a jerk, but had come to change his mind about Anubis since. Nico had fallen to his knees in pain while he was in Anubis's realm, and Anubis had put a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to help him. That had been a mistake which proved what everyone said about good intentions. Somehow, and neither Nico, Anubis, nor Thoth knew how, Anubis had accidentally fused his soul to Nico's. He'd involuntarily taken Nico as a host, something which should have been impossible, and had caused an awful lot of trouble.

Things spiraled out of control after that. Nico sank into a coma for four days. Hades assumed that his son had been kidnapped by the House of Life and had been prepared to start a war with them to get Nico back. The House of Life realized how badly screwed they were, and decided to try to kidnap Nico back and return him to his father. Percy Jackson, Nico's protective older cousin, found out that Nico was being held by the Kanes, and mistakenly thought that they had kidnapped him. It turned into a whirlwind adventure of misunderstandings, battles, and more running for their lives. Lots of running for their lives. And through the adventure, they'd actually come to be friends with Nico and Percy . . . and Anubis, though Carter thought they'd been on good terms with him before. So at the end of it all, they were better off than they'd been before it. Nico might or might not have the blood of the pharaohs in his veins, but he was still a god's host. It was quite possible that he was the only demigodling in all of history, but whether he was or wasn't, he was still a force to be reckoned with. And Percy was just awesome, the kind of guy Carter really wished he could be. Percy was steadfast, and brave, and caring, treating Nico more like a little brother than a DNA-less cousin, an altogether good person, but at the same time he was a wicked awesome fighter with insane powers, near invulnerability, and a special affinity with tiger fish. They weren't what Carter and Sadie had been looking for. They were better. And the more Carter and Sadie learned about them, the happier they were that those boys were their allies now. They had some experience at saving the world, at least.

But as awesome as it was to have made friends like that, neither Sadie nor Carter wanted to repeat the experience.

"London," huffed Carter. "We'll portal to Cleopatra's Needle, then summon the boat on the river."

"No," said Sadie, contrary as always, "Memphis. We'll portal to the Pyramid Arena, so we'll be right up on the river. Less running."

"Fine," said Carter. It wasn't worth arguing over, especially since she had a point.

In the end, it didn't matter. Their plan was foiled when they approached the monument and Carter noticed several suspicious faces trying to blend in with the sea of tourists. It was their eyes that gave them away. Everyone else around the monument was at ease. Maybe not relaxed, since standing around, waiting until their turn to enter the monument couldn't be fun, but people who were just impatient and irritated usually weren't on full alert, with their eyes darting from face to face suspiciously.

Carter grabbed Sadie's hand again to yank her to a stop.

"I told you, Carter, stop trying to hold my hand," said Sadie, and she tried to pull it away.

Carter held onto her this time. "Stop," he said softly but urgently. "Don't fight me. Turn slowly. They're already there."

"They . . ." Sadie trailed off and stopped rebelling.

"They haven't spotted us yet, I don't think," said Carter. "We can't give them any reason to give us a second glance.

"So we're pretending that we're a couple?" asked Sadie, her voice incredulous.

"What – no –"

"That's actually a brilliant idea," said Sadie, and she stepped closer to Carter and leaned her head on his shoulder. "They're looking for a brother and sister, after all. Come on." She started leading Carter away from the monument, back down the path. "Any ideas on what we should do now?"

Carter tried to think, but it was hard with Sadie's hair flying in his face, and her standing so close to him. They were siblings, and they loved each other, but neither of them were big on physical contact. Carter remembered thinking, many of the times that he'd seen Percy picking up Nico and carrying him when he was too exhausted to walk that Sadie would throttle him if he ever tried to help her that way. He and Sadie were growing closer, as siblings, but he still found it incredibly disturbing to be acting like they were a couple.

"There's a river nearby, right?" he asked. "If we can just get there, we can summon the boat."

"Right," said Sadie. "Good plan."

"Thanks," said Carter, genuinely surprised.

"Don't let it go to your head," Sadie warned him, and stepped away from him abruptly. She must have figured they were far enough away from the House of Life freaks guarding the monument. Either that or she deliberately set him up so that he stumbled into a mud puddle. "I wish Nico and Anubis were here," she said, as if she hadn't noticed that Carter's khakis were now mud splattered.

"Or Percy," said Carter. "He's good to have in a fight."

"Nico's better for escaping and sneaking away," said Sadie, as if it was some sort of argument.

"And Anubis is good at faking split personalities," muttered Carter.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

Carter actually did wish that Nico, and by default Anubis, were there too. He'd gotten used to having the younger boy around, and the kid more than pulled his own weight. And it had been nice to have someone around to practice sword fighting with. Nico always beat Carter in their practice matches, and graciously attributed it to his demigod capabilities, rather than rub Carter's face in it like some people would have. He'd explained how most demigods were diagnosed with ADHD (but not him, because he'd been born in the thirties, and that term hadn't been around then, as he liked to point out) because their bodies were wired for fighting monsters and always being on the move, rather than sitting around studying. And studying wasn't easy either because their brains were hardwired for Ancient Greek, so most demigods were dyslexic. Incidentally, ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics weren't any easier for Nico, but Anubis was awake in his head most of the time, and had been willing to help out.

Nico had taken off almost two weeks ago, presumably to go train using his demigod powers. He'd disappeared before, but usually only for a day or two at a time. Never a full week or longer, and Carter had to admit that he was getting a little worried about the younger boy. Nico was powerful, yeah, but he was still just a kid. He was Sadie's age, and didn't really have any business running to all corners of the world and underworld by himself. Carter didn't have the nerve to tell him that, and knew Nico wouldn't be happy if he suddenly had to account for his whereabouts at any given time, but he still worried. At least when he had time to, and since no one was trying to kill them at that exact moment, Carter suddenly found himself with time.

He and Sadie put some distance between themselves and the Washington Monument and before too long found themselves at the Reflecting Pool.

"I don't suppose we could summon the boat here?" suggested Sadie.

"I doubt it," said Carter. "It's a two feet deep concrete pool, not a river. Let's see if we can buy a city map at one of those souvenier kiosks." He motioned toward the row of kiosks off to the side of the Lincoln Memorial.

"Or we could just ask at that tourist center right there," said Sadie. She motioned toward a tiny building that seemed to be a sort of visitor's center.

"Whoever's in there could be a House of Life freak," said Carter warily.

"Or they could just be a normal person, doing their job."

"That's what I thought about the curator."

Sadie rolled her eyes. "You just don't want to ask for directions. What is it about guys and that?"

Carter didn't stop her as she strode over to the tourist center, but kept a wary eye on her. He opened his Duat locker and was ready to snatch out his sword at a moment's notice, but Sadie didn't seem to be in any trouble. She chatted amiably with the attendant for a moment, then nodded and started walking back toward Carter.

Movement out the corner of Carter's eye caught his attention, and the hairs on the back of his neck all suddenly stood up. Trouble. He could feel it. He turned his full attention in that direction and nearly did a double take. A small group of people were running for their lives, and right behind them was the biggest freaking dog Carter had ever seen. It was easily the size of a small bus, with teeth the size of kitchen knives. Drops of saliva flew out of its mouth as it ran. Its fur was black as night. Carter's best guess was that it was one of the hellhounds that Nico had told them about, but whatever it was, it was definitely some sort of mythical creature. None of the normal humans paid the small group or the giant dog any heed. The veil, or what Nico called the Mist, probably showed them a dog on a leash, chasing after its owners.

"Sadie," Carter said and pointed toward the dog. Pointed with his sword, which he'd drawn because he had the feeling he was going to need it.

"Wow, that's a big dog," said Sadie, staring with wide eyes.

"We have to do something. Come on!"

"Carter, don't!" said Sadie. "It could be a trap!"

"Look at their faces!" Carter called back to his sister as he sprinted forward. "That terror's no act!"

Even as he advanced on the group and the hellhound, the smallest member of the group of four tripped and fell flat on her face. She was just a little girl, and couldn't have been older than seven. It took the dog only two bounds to catch up, and then he was nearly on top of her.

Carter acted without thinking and flung a fire ball at the hellhound. He nailed it in the flank just as it was about to crunch down on the little girl.

"Hey!" he shouted. "Dog! Leave her alone!"

That was about the time that all the tourists around them began to react. The Mist now showed them their cocker-spaniel, or whatever they saw the hellhound as, foaming at the mouth or doing something equally scary and dangerous. There were gasps and cries of shock, and people began drawing back, but no one flat out panicked the way they would have if they'd seen what it really was.

The little girl on the ground looked right at Carter and stared at him with fear clouded eyes. She looked like a pixie from a painting, with a mischievous glint to her eyes and curly sandy hair. But there was nothing cute about the terror gripping her. "Help me!" she screamed, still staring right at Carter.

Carter flung another fire ball at the hellhound. It had no more effect on the monster than if he'd hit it with a baseball. In fact, that seemed to be what the humans around them thought he'd done.

"Damn that kid's got a great swing," someone muttered in awe.

"Careful, kid! You're only making it mad!"

"No kidding," muttered Carter, backing up a step as the hellhound started toward him. He raised his sword, but as the monster bore down on him, realized the futility of trying to fight it that way. He doubted his blade could reach any vital organs, even if he managed to stab it in all the way to the hilt, and the monster's head was too low for him to slit its neck open.

He dodged and rolled to the side, barely managing to avoid those kitchen-knife teeth. Several droplets of saliva actually splattered on his skin. Somewhere, close by, someone screamed.

Then hieroglyphics appeared in the air around the hellhound and bandages appeared out of nowhere, shooting up like ropes attached to invisible harpoons. They wound around the monster, between its legs, then around them, tripping it up, then wrapping around it, binding it as tight as a spider's supper.

"Take that," said Sadie, as a bandage twined around the hellhound's mouth, muzzling it.

"YAAAAAH!" A mace clamped down on top of the hellhound's head, as a funny little man with goat legs leapt at it from above. "Take that, foul beast! And that! And that!" His mace made a sound like a cleaver hitting meat each time it connected.

"Hey!" shouted someone from the crowd. "That's uncalled for!"

"Animals deserve to be treated humanely! Even if it does have to be put down, you don't have to beat it to death!"

"You're one to talk, you filthy polluting humans!" roared the satyr, for that's what it had to be. He continued trying to clobber the bound hellhound, but the beating he was trying to administer didn't appear to be doing much good. Either he wasn't very strong, or the hellhound was as tough as a monster from Hades sounded like it'd be.

"What are we supposed to do now?" asked Sadie, stepping uncertainly up beside Carter.

"We can't just leave that thing there," said Carter, eyeing the monster warily. "Those bandages won't hold forever."

Already the linen strips were fraying as the dog strained against them.

"Hurry up and kill it already, then," said Sadie. "Cut off its head or something. That usually kills stuff."

Carter nodded and stepped forward, but before he could reach the monster, a whistling sound filled the air. Then a golden arrow sank right into the back of the hellhound's head, at the base of its skull. The monster dropped like a ton of bricks, then dissipated into a shower of golden particles. Carter jumped back, trying to avoid getting the gold stuff all over himself. "Holy!"

A chariot drawn by two pegasuses dropped out of the sky and landed between the Kanes and the monster. A boy with golden hair and a bronze tan, with a bow in his hands jumped out. A dark haired girl remained in the chariot, holding the reigns. Both of them wore bright orange shirts, which Carter knew could only mean one thing.

"You bastard Son of Apollo!" yowled the satyr, brandishing his club at the beach blond. "You stole my kill!"

"I didn't see your name on it," said the Son of Apollo, a lazy sort of smirk on his face as he watched the satyr literally hop about in anger. He walked quickly over to the little girl who was still sprawled on the ground, and lifted her up as if she weighed no more than a doll. "Here we go. Don't worry, you're okay now. We're going to take you someplace safe."

"Hurry up already," yelled the girl in the chariot.

"Relax, they're not going to run away."

"They will when that hellhound's packmates catch up, if we're not gone by then!"

"Right, right. Well, you heard the lady. Come on." The Son of Apollo motioned them all toward the chariot. "There's more of you than we thought there'd be, so it might be a little tight. Which of you ladies would like to sit on my lap?"

"Save the pillow talk for when we're back at camp!" shouted the girl. "I swear, Brendan!"

"I'm Brendan Noonan, by the way," Brendan introduced himself. "Son of Apollo, but you might recognize me from a couple Abercrombie and Fitch ads. That's Clarisse LaRue. Don't let her scare you, her bark's worse than her bite."

Clarisse was turning red with anger now.

Sadie looked at Carter. "What do we do?"

A howl sounded in the distance. Carter glanced back over his shoulder, in the direction that he thought it came from. He didn't see any giant truck sized dogs racing toward them, but he did see something just as unsettling. One of the House of Life freaks was trying to shove his way through the crowd. Carter recognized him as the curator from the museum. He caught Sadie's eye and jerked his head toward the man. Sadie spotted him immediately.

"Come on already!" Clarisse was shouting at them as they made their decision.

"Let's go," said Sadie. She ran forward and climbed onto the chariot. Carter was right behind her. Brendan Noonan, the little girl he'd picked up, the satyr, and the other two kids who were almost certainly also demigods were already on board.

"Yah!" Clarisse shouted, and cracked her whip. The horses sprang forward and into the sky.

Carter had no idea what the humans saw, but they had all appeared to lose interest. The House of Life agent, on the other hand . . . well Carter was pretty sure he saw things exactly as they were. Carter waited tensely, waiting to see if the man would try to attack them with magic. He wasn't surprised when the man decided not to. After the last incident where the House of Life had messed with demigods, Carter was pretty sure they were going out of their way to avoid them now so as not to cause any inter-pantheon incidents.

"Ha ha," said Sadie triumphantly, and she gave the enemy magician a little wave as they made their escape. "Sucker."

Carter laughed a bit nervously, but he had to admit that this had turned out pretty well. Escaping with demigods might make the House of Life back off a little. Carter doubted that they wanted Hades or any other Greek god paying a visit to the First Nome and exacting vengeance for their children, so if they thought Sadie and Carter were closely connected to the demigods, they'd be more likely to tread lightly around them.

Now all that was left to do was to slip away from these demigods the first time they landed, and find a river so that they could get home. It seemed easy enough.

Unfortunately, Carter had forgotten that nothing was ever easy anymore, at least not for him and Sadie.

* * *

AN: I meant to get this written and posted sooner, but I haven't had the chance. First it was school work and cross country, then it was school work and doctor visits and physical therapy because my hand that got crushed in that weight-room "accident" didn't heal right. I had to go see a specialist in the next state over which has not been fun. My parents are really busy so I've had to take a bus partway there, then meet my oldest sister at her college so that she can drive me the rest of the way the next day. And my sister really doesn't want me around, or let me touch her computer, so there's nothing for me to do there. Except there is a really big bookstore within walking distance. It's kind of a long walk, but it's better than sitting around doing nothing. Thankfully (hopefully) I only have two more of those doctor visits. Sorry, I just needed to vent about that, and I've been holding off at home because my parents are doing the best they can and it would make them feel bad. And they did give me spending money to buy books and food because they know how my sister is, and that's a plus. So anyway, that's why I haven't gotten this fic posted sooner.

But about this fic: I've tried to incorporate as many requests from my reviews as possible. Thalia and Annabeth will both be making appearances in this story, and Carter and Sadie will be seeing what Camp Half-Blood is all about. They're not demigods though, they've just been mistaken as demigods by other demigods who don't know any better. Paul Blofis won't be in this fic, but he will be in the next one I'm planning to write, which is a Christmas fic. And I will get that one finished by Christmas, even if I have to write the entire first draft on napkins with my left hand. As far as trying to keep things mainly in canon, so that this AU could kind of be something that happens between the books . . . well, _The Lost Hero_ kind of blew away all chances of that. Not that I didn't like the book, because I liked it very much . . . except for the fact that Nico wasn't in it at all. But that aside, I don't see any way that my fanfic plotlines can be reconciled with Mr. Riordan's real plotlines, so this AU looks like it's going to be more AU than I planned it to be.

And lastly (sorry, I'll try to keep the ANs shorter from now on) Thank you everyone who voted for my other fic, "The Death God Alliance" in the Veritas Awards! I don't want to go all Miss America on you and make a speech, but I am very grateful that people liked my story, and right before I found out that I won, I'd just had to drop off the cross country team because of the medicines I'm taking for my hand. It really turned my day around, so thank you so much!

Asilda


	2. Chapter 2

2

_The Previous Evening . . ._

Something was wrong with Nico. Bianca was sure of it. And it wasn't because of some big sister instinct. It was because suddenly, all her attempts at checking in on her brother by every mystic means that she attempted, were blocked. It was like something, or someone, was deliberately shielding Nico from all surveillance, and who or whatever it was, it was powerful. As in god-strength powerful.

Children of the Underworld had some special privileges that normal demigods didn't have, both when they were alive, and after they died. That was how Bianca had been able to watch over her little brother, even after her death, and contact Percy back when Nico's powers first began developing, and he needed help even though he didn't know it. Unfortunately, watching and communicating with Iris messages were the extent of what she could do in the world of the living, after her death. She couldn't go back and make contact with Nico, and see what was going on with her own eyes unless she was summoned, and since she had told Nico it was better not to summon her, she didn't have much hope of that happening.

So Bianca reached out through the means that were open to her and contacted the most dependable mutual friend that she and her brother had: Percy Jackson.

It was harder to get in touch with Percy than she'd expected. He was the son of the sea god, yet there wasn't so much as a water glass his bedroom at his apartment. She'd thought for sure that he would have a fish tank, or Zen fountain. Even a lava lamp would have been sufficient, but no such luck. Every other time he was near an open connection, he was either in public, or near it too briefly for Bianca to actually establish a connection. Except when he was in the shower, and Bianca didn't look in on him when he was in there.

It was weeks before Bianca finally managed to contact Percy, and then only after he'd gone to Camp Half-Blood. In fact, the first time she tried to Iris message him on his first evening there, the connection wouldn't go through. She tried again repeatedly until finally her message got through. Percy's room blinked into view in the rainbow right as it seemed Percy was getting ready for bed.

"Percy!" snapped Bianca, glad to have finally gotten through.

Percy had been right in the process of taking off his shirt. He yelped in surprise and struggled to both get himself untangled and draw his sword at the same time. The end result was that he ended up ripping one of the side seams of his shirt.

"Who's there?" he demanded. "Nico?"

"No, it's me," Bianca called to him. "Bianca," she clarified.

She saw Percy mouth her name in surprise, then glance toward the door. He hurried over to the fountain and tossed a couple gold drachmas into it. "You just missed your brother," he told her. "Hang on, I'll run and get him –"

"Wait!"

Percy froze in midstride. "What's wrong?"

"I think that something's wrong with Nico," Bianca told him.

"Wrong how?" asked Percy.

"I don't know," admitted Bianca. "You said he was just here?"

Percy nodded. "He seems fine to me. He's still got all his limbs attached, all ten fingers, and as far as I know, all ten toes. And he didn't seem upset about anything . . . in fact, this past month he's been as happy as I've ever seen him."

"This past month?" asked Bianca.

"Yeah."

"I haven't been able to check in on him at all for about a month," Bianca told Percy. "Every time I try it's like I run into a glass wall."

"Check in on him?" Percy asked.

Bianca nodded.

Percy came closer to his fountain with a frown on his face. "You check in on him often?"

"Well . . . he's my little brother."

"Um, well . . . does he know that? That you check in on him I mean," said Percy quickly. "Not that you're his sister. I know he already knows that."

Percy seemed unusually nervous, Bianca noticed. "I don't know if he knows or not," admitted Bianca. "He probably has some kind of clue."

"You're sure he didn't just find out, and, you know, find a way to block it because he doesn't want to be spied on?" asked Percy. "I mean, he's a teen now, or almost, isn't he? No man likes the idea of a female member of their family being able to look in on them at any random time."

"He's not a man, he's a little boy," argued Bianca. "And I think something's wrong with him. You can't just shield yourself so completely like that, not without tremendous power to work with. It would take someone as strong as a Titan, or one of the Big Three to work that kind of block, not one of the Big Three's twelve-year-old sons."

"Um . . . uh . . ."

"You know something," realized Bianca.

"What?" asked Percy. "Me?"

"You've seen him more than once over the past month."

"Well, we are at Camp Half-Blood . . ." said Percy weakly.

"Before that," said Bianca. "You've seen him more than that."

Percy shrugged. "He comes over for Sunday dinners sometimes. We caught a movie a couple weeks ago, and went to a party one of my friends from school invited me to last week. Rachel was there too."

"A_ boy-girl party?"_ asked Bianca, momentarily distracted. "Percy, he's too young for that!"

"He's twelve or thirteen. We're not sure, since he doesn't know when his birthday was, but –"

"That's too young. Please tell me there wasn't any drinking or drugs or making out in closets going on," pleaded Bianca.

Percy slapped his palm to his face and muttered, "I can't believe I'm having this conversation."

"This is serious, Percy!"

"Bianca," said Percy, "Nico is fine. He's growing up. That's what people do. Er . . . I mean, people who don't . . . er . . . find some way around aging . . ."

Bianca shelved that issue for the moment. "But you know something about what's happening to him."

"Um . . ." Percy looked extremely uncomfortable. "Look, I'm sorry, but I'm not . . . this isn't . . . Look, I'll ask Chiron to give him the talk, because I'm not cut out for that."

"The talk? What talk?" demanded Bianca.

Percy blinked at her then blushed. "Never mind. I think I misunderstood you."  
"Percy, I'm worried about him," emphasized Bianca. "Something has happened to him. You don't just get powerful enough to block out everyone who might be looking in on you in a week, but that's what happened to him. You know something about what happened, don't you?"

The answer was written all over Percy's face.

"Percy, what happened to him?" demanded Bianca. "Is he okay?"

"He's fine," Percy told her. "There's nothing wrong with him."

"What happened then?"

Percy shook his head.

"Please, tell me."

"I promise you that he is okay, and that I'm doing my best to keep an eye on him," said Percy. "But I promised him that I wouldn't tell anyone about . . . about the stuff I promised I wouldn't tell anyone about. Not unless I had to."

"Percy, whatever it is, it's dangerous," insisted Bianca. "That much power . . . him fooling around with it –"

"He's not fooling around," said Percy. "He's doing the best he can and being as responsible as he can, and if you knew . . ." He shook his head looking frustrated.

"Tell me so I do know then."

"And betray his trust?" asked Percy. "He doesn't trust many people anymore, because everyone he used to trust let him down."

That stung and Bianca couldn't think of anything to say to it.

"But if you knew . . . you'd be proud of him. I'd be proud of him if he was my little brother." The look Percy gave Bianca wasn't accusing, but Bianca felt its bite just the same. "He's a good kid."

"Percy?" A painfully familiar voice came from the direction of the door. Almost immediately, the Iris Message connection grew fuzzy, like distortions underwater. "Are you still awake? I'd meant to ask you –"

Bianca shifted anxiously, trying to get a better angle and maybe see the door as footsteps sounded across the cabin's threshold, but the connection sputtered and died before Nico came into view. Bianca gave a cry of frustration and stared into the black.

She'd never realized how much she missed seeing her little brother's face until suddenly realizing that she couldn't see him anymore. But she wasn't ready to give up yet. Percy had been her best bet, the person she thought that she could depend on the most. And she still could depend on him, she knew. He would do his best to look after Nico, because that's just how Percy was. But Bianca needed to know what was going on.

"Oh Goddess of the Rainbow, I need to make another collect call. This time to Thalia Grace."

* * *

"She's been _spying_ on me?" Nico was mad.

"Looking out for you is how she put it," said Percy carefully.

"Which is just another way of saying spying," said Nico.

_Her intentions were good,_ said Anubis, inside of Nico's head. The Egyptian death god who had unintentionally possessed him had been keeping the amount of consciousness and power he put into his host at a minimum while they were in camp, but Nico's anger had caught his attention.

_Everyone knows where good intentions get you,_ said Nico to the god. _Oh wait, she's already there. Besides, she gave up any rights to telling me what to do when she abandoned me. It's none of her business if I'm going to boy-girl parties! _

_ I find the amount of importance placed on these boy-girl parties laughable,_ commented Anubis.

_She doesn't have the right to spy on me. Thanks for putting a stop to all that by the way. That was your doing, wasn't it? _Nico asked.

Anubis sent the mental equivalent of a nod through their connection. _Not intentionally. I didn't mean to shield you from your father either, but that happened as well. I assume your sister ran into the same wall that he did._

Nico relayed this information to Percy, who nodded.

"I figured as much," said Percy.

Nico sighed and sat down on one of the deck chairs that were in the Poseidon Cabin and glanced toward the goldfish bowls of glowing underwater plants. It was much homier than the Hades Cabin. Nico liked his cabin better, but knew that being in his cabin put Percy on edge, so he'd come here to talk to him now that the day was over and they had a chance to talk without having to worry about other people listening in on them. And there was always a lot to talk about. The Egyptian stuff, which Nico was still sorting out, of course, but other stuff too. Like when Alexa Milton from Percy's high school was having another party, and whether or not Aunt Sally and Paul would let Percy go to beach week when school let out before he came back to Camp Half-Blood when summer started.

The Egyptian stuff was a bit more serious. Percy had been very worried that the camp's defenses might not even let Nico back in, but Nico had gotten through without a hitch. They figured that was probably because campers could grant permission for monsters to cross the camp's borders, like Annabeth had with Tyson once, or summon them, like Luke did to the hellhound the first week Percy was at camp. Nico was a demigod, even if he did have an Egyptian god stuck in his skull, so the camp's borders probably took it as unspoken consent that Anubis was allowed inside the camp, since he'd already been allowed inside Nico's head.

"Are you alright?" asked Percy after Nico had sat in silence for awhile.

"Yeah, I'm fine," said Nico. "I'm dealing the best I can with everything. Compared to a lot of the stuff from the past month, finding out that my dead sister is spying on me isn't that big."

"Annabeth knows something's up."

"How so?"

"She thinks we've been acting suspiciously," said Percy. "She knows I'm keeping something from her. I haven't told her anything, and I'm not going to unless it's an emergency, but she's . . . not happy about it."

Nico nodded. "What should we do?"

"Maybe put all speculation about this Egyptian stuff on hold until spring break ends?" suggested Percy. "I think we must look suspicious, and like we don't want anyone overhearing us when we talk about that because . . . well, because that's what Annabeth told me."

Nico nodded again. "We can do that. There's not much more to discuss anyway. I think I already told you everything that's happened."

"Yeah." Percy yawned, which Nico took as a sign that it was time to go.

"I'm off for the night, then," he said. "And I won't forget. No more talking about Egypt stuff at camp from here on out."

"Unless it's an emergency," added Percy hastily.

"Unless it's an emergency," agreed Nico. "But I doubt we'll have any of those. At least not this week."

* * *

Sure Nico. Dream on! Lol

Thank you for all the nice reviews and get well wishes! I worked very hard to get this chapter up tonight for you guys because I'm missing school tomorrow to go to my sister's college, then she's going to take me to my doctor's appointment on Saturday. I won't get home until Sunday, then it'll be all homework and catching up for awhile. My hand didn't get broken a second time, by the way, because I think I worded it wrong last chapter and made you think the bitch from before broke it again. But what happened this time is a tiny splinter of bone got missed and lodged in a tendon, then got infected, which is gross, so I wasn't going to say anything, but I don't want people thinking I let my bitch rival break my hand again, because my pride will not allow it. But at least I get to buy a couple new books this weekend. There was one I wanted to get last time that I can't remember the title of, but it looked like it was about a changeling, and had a haunting picture on the cover of scissors, a kitchen-knife, and some other sharp metal objects hunt up so they're dangling over a baby's cradle. I hope it's on the same shelf as last time because I don't remember the author's name.

Next chapter will be up next week sometime, probably later in the week because I'll have to catch up on school work. But in the next chapter all the other players arrive at Camp Half-Blood, and that's when the fun starts.


	3. Chapter 3

AN: Sorry I'm so late in posting this chapter. Long story for why it got delayed, which will be in the author note/rant at the bottom of the chapter, if you care to read it. I hope you enjoy this chapter and again, sorry for the wait.

3

Things started off well the next day, or at least they did in Percy's opinion. Everything was going normally, which was how he needed it to be. He didn't avoid Nico, but made sure not to seek him out any more than he had back during winter break, and he spent plenty of time with Annabeth, and it seemed like she had actually started to put her suspicions that something fishy was going on with Nico and Percy aside.

Then dinner happened.

It started off smoothly, with Percy sitting by himself at the Poseidon table, Nico sitting by himself at the Hades table, and everyone else sitting with their half-brothers and half-sisters at all their respective tables, in accordance with the camp's rules. But Percy couldn't help but notice how lonely Nico looked during the meal. He'd noticed last night as well, but hadn't thought much further on it, but after the IM he'd gotten from Bianca the previous evening, Percy now started to wonder when the last time Nico had a meal with his family had been.

Sunday dinners at the Blofis-Jackson residence aside, since they were extended family, and Nico had an immediate family. He just couldn't have dinner with them because they were all in the Underworld, and everyone knew the rules about Underworld food. If you ate it, you could never leave. That kind of ruled out family dinners for Nico.

And that was sad. Percy had always loved it when he and his mother had the chance to have meals together, just the two of them, and more recently now with Paul, since he had become a welcome addition to their family. The years that they'd been stuck with Smelly Gabe had made what Percy thought of as 'real' family dinners few and far between, which might have been what made Percy appreciate them so much. But whatever the reason Percy had always thought that eating with your family was something special. And until now he hadn't really given much thought to how that didn't apply to Nico.

He was out of his seat, with his cup of blue Coke in one hand, and his plate in the other before he realized what he was doing, and where he was going. But even as he realized it, he didn't hesitate, or even think about turning around. Nico looked up in surprise, his lips actually forming an O when Percy sat down on the bench across from him.

"Percy? What are you doing?" asked Nico, looking surprised, hopeful, and anxious all at once.

"Mind if I join you?" asked Percy in return. "I don't really feel like eating alone again tonight, and you seem to have some room at your table."

"Yeah, but . . ." Nico glanced around. Several other campers had seen Percy take a seat at the Hades table and they were pointing it out to their brothers and sisters, or watching to see what this development would lead to. "It's against the rule . . ." said Nico softly, as though by keeping his voice down he might keep Chiron or Mr. D from calling them out for this infraction.

"It's not hurting anything," said Percy, trying a practical approach. "Besides, I don't think it's written down anywhere. If Chiron has a problem, or Mr. D cares enough to get off his butt and make me move, then I'll move. Until then, it's better to ask forgiveness than permission."

Nico perked up a bit, his anxiousness seeping away. "I like that philosophy."

Percy made it a point not to look Chiron's way. He didn't want to make eye contact, because Chiron might shake his head or point back at the Poseidon table, and then Percy would have to get up and leave. So it was better just to act like he didn't think he was doing anything wrong, and if anyone had a problem with it, they could come over and fix it themselves.

Besides, he knew he made the right decision when Nico immediately began filling the silence with casual chatter. Nothing too serious and none of their banned topics were brought up, but like the happy ten-year-old Percy had first met several years ago, it seemed that Nico had a lot to say. For his part, Percy was able to keep up the conversation well too. Beach week seemed like a fifty-fifty shot right now, he let Nico know, and it would probably come down to whether or not he got decent grades. And no, he didn't want Nico taking his Italian quizzes for him, because his teachers would definitely notice that a shrimpy twelve-year-old didn't belong in their classes, but setting a prism on his desk during his exam, "for luck" _might_ be a good idea as long as Rachel didn't find out.

For a few minutes Percy actually managed to forget that he and Nico were at Camp Half-Blood as they talked. It felt more like one of those Sunday afternoons when they hung out at Percy's apartment, or an evening on the weekend where they went to the arcade, or a party at one of Percy's friends' places.

Reality came crashing back down however, when a disturbance arrived. A small group of demigods back from an extraction stumbled into the dining area, led by Brendan Noonan and Clarisse LaRue.

"And this, my fine demigod friends, is where we eat," said Brendan, obviously having taken it upon himself to give them the tour. "It seems that we've arrived just in time. Like sleeping arrangements, what table you sit at here depends on who your godly parent is, and until you are claimed, Hermes, the God of Travelers, is your sponsor. You lovely ladies don't need to worry about not having been claimed yet. It usually happens at campfire in the evening, so if you girls will just follow me this way . . . and, uh, you . . . Hephaestus guy, you go over there . . . and you other person, you can come this way too, I guess."

Percy rolled his eyes at Brendan's behavior and knew he'd be hearing complaints about it at the next counselor meeting, how Brendan had acted like a ladies man to the ladies and completely ignored the new demigod boys. Out of curiosity he let his gaze drift away from Nico's animated face as the boy chattered about an aquarium in Seattle that had a real live sea serpent, but that the Mist made people see as a shark.

A Hispanic demigod drifted toward the Hephaestus table, while Brendan led the other new demigods over to the Hermes table. Hovering close to him, and actually holding his hand was a tiny girl with brown hair and an elfin face that looked like she might actually be a daughter of Hermes. On Brendan's other side, looking as though she was thinking about twisting the arm Brendan had slung around her shoulders was a very pretty girl who seemed to be actively trying not to be attractive. Her hair was cut unevenly and she was bundled up in a puffy skiing jacket that hid her figure. He couldn't peg her at a glance like he could a lot of new demigods who'd stumbled in. She was pretty enough to be one of Aphrodite's but her aversion to looking pretty made that seem unlikely.

_Maybe Demeter, or Ares, _Percy thought to himself. Plenty of the girls from that cabin were as beautiful as the flowers they grew without putting any effort into their appearances, and some of the daughters of Ares were beautiful in an Amazonian-kick-butt-River Tam kind of way.

His eyes drifted to the last two members of the small group, just as he raised his cup and took a drink. Familiarity struck him like a bolt out of the blue, much the same way that a geyser of blue Coke struck Nico as Percy spit out his drink in shock.

Nico yowled and jumped up, his expression somewhere between alarm and annoyance. "Percy! What was that for?" he yelped. "You could have just said, 'No, Nico, I don't really care to go see the stupid aquarium.' You didn't have to spit all over me!"

"Nico," said Percy, his eyes now locked on Sadie and Carter who had spotted him because of this outburst.

"I thought you would like to go!" wailed Nico, looking hurt. "I was trying to be nice!"

"Nico," said Percy, raising his voice urgently. "Turn around and look behind you."

Nico blinked at him several times, blue Coke still running down his face. Then he calmed down and turned around, and saw Sadie and Carter. He spun back around to look at Percy, wide-eyed, and tipped over his own drink by mistake. "Gods, damn it!"

"Settle down," said Percy urgently.

"What are they doing here?" hissed Nico. "How'd they even get in?"

"I don't know. Just be quiet," Percy hissed back. "Everyone's staring at us now."

"Probably because you spit on me! And you have the nerve to tell me to settle down?" Nico looked livid.

"I'm sorry," apologized Percy. He handed Nico his napkin. "They took me by surprise."

He turned and watched as the group of new demi-gods and the renegade Egyptian magicians reached the Hermes table. Brendan unslung his arm from around the older girl's neck, picked up the tiny girl, and set her up on the bench, then said something that made her giggle and nod, before he stepped back and went to join his own table. But not before giving a gallant bow to Sadie who glared at him, unimpressed.

Carter hesitated before sitting down, and looked to Percy who gave him a nod and mouthed, "Play along." Carter returned the nod and sat at the Hermes table. Sadie did the same.

"Not good," Nico was muttering. "This is definitely not good. What are they doing here?"

"I don't think they're here by choice," said Percy. "Or at least not by design."

"How did they trick Clarisse and Brendan into thinking they were demigods?" wondered Nico. "Wait, never mind, I can guess. Bigger question: What do we do now?"

"We get them out of here," said Percy. "Them being here is not a good idea."

Since the incident a month ago, a unit on the House of Life had been added to the Camp Half-Blood curriculum. Percy had snuck a look at Annabeth's notebook earlier that day to see what they were being taught about the Egyptian magicians, and for the most part approved of the material.

'House of Life freaks are irrational and unpredictable, and should be avoided whenever possible,' was the gist of it. Percy would have added a couple paragraphs about them being sadistic, child-torturing bitches, as well as tasty treats for tiger fish, but no one had asked him. The important things were covered, at least, along with some warnings about the newly unleashed Egyptian gods and their past attempts at kidnapping demigods and trying to use them as hosts. Over all, Percy thought that it was good that his fellow demigods had all been forewarned (even if it was too late to do Nico any good) but the problem now was that the material had painted all things Egyptian in a negative light. Percy didn't know what would happen if the Kane siblings revealed what they were. He didn't want to find out either.

* * *

To say that Sadie was annoyed was an understatement. All day one thing had been going wrong after another. If it wasn't House of Life freaks, it was demigods and their problems. Going along with the extraction team hadn't been a good idea either, because the chariot turned out to be a nonstop flight to Camp Half-Blood, and trying to talk Clarisse and Brendan into landing and letting them off hadn't worked.

"You'd get killed in a heartbeat," Clarisse had told them. "We need to take you to camp so you can get trained."

"It goes against all my instinct to leave a beautiful lady out there all alone," Brendan had told her.

"I wouldn't be alone," snapped Sadie. "I'd be with my brother."

Carter had spoken up too. "We really would be fine, if you could just land and let us off. We've been working together fine for awhile now and had no plans of going to your camp."

Clarisse had looked at them with something like grudging respect, but Sadie noticed that it seemed aimed more toward Carter. Maybe because Clarisse had seen Carter engage that hellhound, and as a child of Ares she could appreciate stupid acts of violence like that. "You've got guts, I'll give you both that, but things have gotten a lot more dangerous lately. It's only been half a year since we got rid of one enemy, and now we have a bunch of new ones to deal with. Ones that have no rhyme or reason."

"You're talking about those Egyptian whack-jobs, Clarisse?" asked Brendan.

"Who else?"

"I don't know why we're suddenly on alert about those guys when no one's even seen them," said Brendan.

"We've heard about them," said Clarisse angrily. "And we have seen them. Or at least some of us have. You heard how a bunch of those bastards jumped Nico di Angelo!"

"Corpse Kid?" scoffed Brendan. "If they'd taken him out they'd have been doing us a favor."

Sadie had clenched her fists in anger and decided right then that she hated Brendan. Carter had grabbed her shoulder and gave her a warning look, but there was no way Sadie could let a remark like that about their friend go unaddressed. She opened her mouth, but Clarisse spoke first.

"You ungrateful scrap of crow-bait," said Clarisse venomously. "How dare you talk that way about him after he saved all our lives?"

"Umm, he does use death magic, remember? Raises the dead and forces their corpses to fight for him? If that's not unnatural I don't know what is."

An argument had broken out between the two senior demigods then. Some of the things they said about Nico weren't exactly encouraging to the real demigods they'd picked up, Sadie couldn't tell, but she was pretty sure that none of it was lies. All the abilities they talked about seemed well within the scope of Nico's power, except maybe the death touch Brendan insisted Nico had, but which Clarisse said wasn't true. And Clarisse did a good job sticking up for Nico, which made Sadie like her.

But she and Carter both got the idea that it might not be a good idea to reveal that they were both Egyptian magicians.

She'd wondered if they'd see Nico and Percy at the camp, and when they arrived at the picnic tables she'd started scanning the crowded ones at first, sure that they'd be surrounded by friends. It wasn't until Brendan mentioned that their lineage determined which table they sat at that she started looking at the less crowded tables. She found Percy the same second that he found her, if his timing for spitting out his drink all over Nico was anything to go by. Despite the seriousness of the situation, she still found herself smirking over that.

They sat down at the Hermes table and Sadie tried to avoid looking at Percy and Nico, not sure if it was good to tip people off that they knew each other yet. Instead she looked around at the other campers and tried to get a read on them.

Some of them weren't too hard to figure out. Sadie didn't know a lot about Greek mythology, just what she'd learned in school, but she figured it was enough. It was pretty easy to see which table Aphrodite's kids sat at, and she thought she could have guessed the Ares table even without knowing that was where Clarisse had a seat reserved. The camouflage was a give-away.

The few times that she dared to sneak glances at Nico and Percy's table she saw them deep in a discussion, heads close together, talking in urgent tones. It was obvious to anyone, not just Sadie who already knew, that they were up to something. She glanced around to see if anyone else was paying attention and noticed a girl with blonde hair and grey eyes watching Percy and Nico shrewdly.

She's going to be a problem, Sadie knew instinctively. She glanced back at Nico and Percy, willing them to look up so that she could try to signal them somehow, but Percy was watching Nico intently, and Nico was . . . Nico was scrawling something into his food and mumbling something. He seemed to be concentrating very carefully.

Sadie looked back down at her own food and picked up her fork, and prepared to dig into her mashed potatoes and gravy. A slight shimmering caught her eye and she froze. Then blinked. The shimmering didn't disappear, but rather began to form hieroglyphics. Sadie elbowed Carter who looked at her curiously, then followed her gaze as a message began to appear.

CAPTURE THE FLAG IS NEXT. WE'LL SPEAK THEN. DO NOT REVEAL YOU'RE MAGICIANS.

It was signed with the hieroglyphic that represented Anubis' name, but Sadie got the feeling the message was from all three of the boys sitting at Percy and Nico's table (even though Nico and Anubis were sharing a body.) Some of the hieroglyphics were actually written backward so that the reeds or the birds or eyes were facing the wrong way, probably because of Nico's dyslexia. But whichever of them it was from, and however many typos were in the message, it was still clear. Sadie nodded to the boys to let them know that the message had been received, then quickly stirred the gravy into her mashed potatoes, getting rid of the evidence.

Then something else happened that caused much more of a stir than a couple of new demigods and undercover magicians arriving at the camp in the middle of dinner. Some more guests appeared whose arrival seemed much more unexpected than Sadie's, Carter's, and their fellow newcomers' arrival had been.

Sadie noticed the change in attitude immediately, even before she saw them. People started murmuring, and there were even a few angry hisses and mumbled insults.

"Who are they?" asked Piper, the other new girl who'd come in with Sadie and Carter. Sadie liked Piper well enough. The other girl had the same attitude toward Brendan Noonan as Sadie had, which said something about her intelligence in Sadie's opinion.

"The Hunters of Artemis," said one of the Hermes girls. "They're not normal campers, though some of them used to be."

"You know what this means," said one of the Hermes boys.

"Tonight's going to be one heck of a game," said one of his brothers.

"We have sort of a rivalry with them," explained the Hermes girl. "My name is Christine, by the way. The Hunters . . . well, they're not bad people, but they don't do things the way we do, and sometimes things get out of hand."

"Femi-Nazis," muttered one of the Hermes boys.

"Hey, hey, look at the Corpse Kid!" hissed another Hermes daughter.

Sadie immediately looked over toward Nico, without pretending to wait and see where the other campers at her table looked. She frowned. Nico's expression was odd. It was somewhere between being hurt and being angry, and even though Percy was talking to him, Nico didn't seem to hear a word his cousin said until Percy actually grabbed his shoulder and shook him.

"Who are they?" Piper asked again. Sadie glanced her way and saw that she was looking at Nico's and Percy's table now.

"Our resident heroes," said a Hermes son who'd already introduced himself as Ashton. "Percy Jackson and Nico di Angelo."

"Only one can really be called a hero," said Christine. "Percy, the taller one with green eyes, is the son of Poseidon. Last summer he saved the world."

"Nico helped," argued Ashton.

"Nico's kind of a freak of nature, if you haven't already noticed," said Christine.

"Without him we'd all be dead and you know it," said Ashton.

"That doesn't mean he's not a freak."

Sadie opened her mouth to speak up on her friend's behalf, but Carter elbowed her and gave her a warning look. Sadie toned down the scalding comment that had been on her tongue but couldn't make herself stay silent. "If he saved your lives then why is he a freak?"

"He's the son of Hades," said Christine. "He summons dead people. Talks with dead people. Spends more time with dead people than live people Picture the most emo-goth loser you can think of and that's him. I don't know why they even let him in here."

"If he saved your lives then isn't he on the same side as you?" asked Piper. Sadie was liking this girl more and more. "If the only way I could save my friends was to summon the dead then I'd sure as heck get out grab a vial of the T-virus, or a ouiji board, or the Deathly Hallows ring, or whatever else was handy."

"He belongs here, the same as us," said Ashton hotly. "And he's a good guy once you get to know him."

"Why's he upset about the Hunters being here?" Carter wanted to know.

"His sister ditched him to join the Hunters," said Christine. "Can you blame her?"

"Yes I can," said Sadie angrily. "There's no excuse for abandoning your brother." She glanced sideways at Carter, but her fierce expression didn't lessen a bit. "Families should stay together. If you ask me, Nico deserved better."

"Just so you're forewarned, you might be asked to join," said Ashton. "The Hunters always make a point of asking unclaimed campers in the Hermes cabin."

"If they ask me I'll tell them to shove their offer where the sun don't shine," growled Sadie.

Piper laughed softly and looked from Sadie to Carter, then back again. She had been made aware of their familial relationship on the ride there, and now there was definite admiration in her eyes.

"You shouldn't be so quick to throw that chance away," said Christine. "There are advantages to being a Hunter. For starters, you're pretty much immortal. You stop aging, magically get stronger –"

"And have to swear off dating for eternity," put in Ashton, "which if I remember is why you turned it down, Christine."

"They can keep their offer," decided Piper.

"Will I be offered too?" asked Maya, the little girl who had almost gotten turned into the hellhound's chew toy.

"Maybe," said Ashton. "You're a little bit younger than they usually invite. If you want to join them when you're older they'll probably let you, but in the mean time don't you want to stay with us and make friends here?"

Maya bobbed her head.

"How long are they going to be here?" asked Sadie. She glanced over at Nico again and saw that he was staring down at his dinner but not touching it.

"Who knows?" asked Christine. She glanced at the Hunters then gave a laugh. "Ha. Would you look at that?"

Sadie turned to watch too. Most of the Hunters had gotten food and drinks and moved to an empty table, but one of them was walking toward the table where Percy and Nico were sitting. Unlike the others, this one wore a silver diadem and carried herself a bit differently, like she had an air of command.

"Much more of this and they might start letting all of us sit wherever we want to during mealtimes," said another of the Hermes boys.

"I don't know about that," said Ashton. "I'm pretty sure Chiron's only turning a blind eye because it's Percy and Nico."

"Now it's Percy, Nico, and Thalia," commented Christina.

"Or just Percy and Thalia now," said Ashton.

Nico had stood up and turned tail when he saw Thalia headed his way. The next thing Sadie knew, Nico was rushing past the Hermes table at a dead run. Instinctively, Sadie started to stand, ready to go after him. Carter grabbed Sadie by the arm and jerked her back down.

"What was that all about?" wondered Christine.

Sadie bit her lip and looked back at the table where Percy and Thalia were talking. Their voices were too soft for her to hear them, but Percy was shaking his head, obviously trying to deny something. Thalia had a stern expression on her face, like she was suspicious of something.

She wasn't the only one. Sadie glanced back at the grey-eyed blond girl and saw that she was watching Percy and Thalia with a wary expression as well.

"Great," she muttered too softly for anyone except Carter to hear her. "This is probably going to complicate things."

* * *

AN: Again, sorry about the wait. I was stranded in the city where my sister goes to college because she drove me to my dr. appointment in a city about an hour away, then decided to go shopping there, which was all fine and good, except for the part where she took 4 hours and made me miss my bus home. The next bus was the next Fri, and my parents couldn't come and get me so I was stuck with my sister all week. So aside from not being able to write this fic, my school work was piling up as well, and I've been struggling to get it all finished, and staying up late every night, and only now just managed to catch up enough to write this chap. My dad wired me some money while I was stranded so I wouldn't starve, but my sister stole half of it, as well as my pain meds because she's a screwed up selfish bitch. But, on the bright side, I don't really need the pain meds now because my hand is a lot better, and this coming Sat should be my last appointment with the hand specialist doctor lady.

And some even better news is that I found the most awesome book series to hit the literary world since Rick Riordan graced us with his genius. The series is called The Gargoyle Legends, and it's by Heather Fleming and it is phenomenal. There are very few books that I feel the need to gush over, but these books kick so much ass. There will be a longer summary for these books in my profile (please check it out!) but there are some things that I feel the need to talk about _now_. The use of mythology in them is amazing and makes connections between myths from different cultures that I had completely overlooked in all my research, but once they were pointed out to me had me gaping and thinking ohmygod, that's true, I never thought of that . . . how did I never see that? More, give me more! Seriously. I bought the first book (called The Gargoyle Club) kind of on a whim, I'd seen it a couple times before but never picked it up until after missing my bus, and in a bad mood, I went back to the bookstore for some retail therapy. I read the back, then started reading the first page, intending only to read a couple paragraphs to decide whether or not I'd think about getting it, and ended up never put it down. I took it back to my sister's dorm-room and stayed up all night reading it, and when I finished, cursed myself for not buying the second book in the series.

The next day I went back and started reading the second book there. I wanted to get it so bad, but I had to hang on to the money I had left because my bitch sister had had stolen what was wired to me that morning. I ended up reading the entire second book in the bookstore over the week. I know that freeloading like that isn't right, but I spread it out over the course of the week and bought coffee at the bookstore's Starbucks to have a reason to stay, but every time I stopped myself it was agony. I wanted to know what happened next. And now that I've finished it I'm dying as I wait for this weekend's trip so that I can buy it and the third and fourth ones. I'm a voracious reader, but it's very rare that something I like this much comes along, but this series has me hooked so bad, I'm losing sleep because I need to know what happens next!

I'll save the rest of my singing praises for my profile, but I feel the need to talk about my favorite character here: Abdiel St. Jude. His parents named him after an angel in Paradise Lost, and his little sister's name is Eden. Abdiel doesn't come in until the second book (so sad!) but when he does you kind of do a double take, because you see him as a child in the prologue, happy, loving, with his family. Then you see him in the first chapter like fifteen years later and he's about as different as he could possibly be. He reminds me a lot of Nico, or how Nico would have been if he was the older di Angelo sibling, and Bianca was his responsibility to look after. He's how a Nico like that would be if he thought that Bianca had died on his watch, right in front of him, and it was his fault, then he was taken in by a family with two young children who needed protection, and wanted him to provide it, because even at a young age he was powerful and badass. Those kids wouldn't replace his real sister, of course, but he grew fond of them and protected them until he had a falling out with that family and left them. Then, imagine what would happen if years later, he found out that Bianca was alive, that he had saved her, and that the family that he'd loved and trusted, has broken ties with, but still cares about, had lied to him and told him she was dead so that they could use him as a bodyguard for their kids. And that, my friends, is Abdiel St. Jude. Or an analogy of his situation at least.

And it's late, I need to get some sleep, and this AN has turned into the longest one yet, I think. Sorry about that, but trust me, the Gargoyle Legends series is worth it. Put The Gargoyle Club by Heather Fleming on your wishlist for Christmas, and the second book The Grotesque Game if you want to read Abdiel's story too. Those are what all my book loving friends are getting for Christmas this year because I have absolutely no doubts that they will love them.


	4. Chapter 4

4

Nico hated the Hunters of Artemis.

_Hated_ them.

Not so much out of a grudge, because he'd been working hard to avoid holding grudges, but because the mere sight of them drudged up the worst memories of his life . . . or of the few years he'd been rebuilding his memories after they'd all been washed away in the River Lethe. He also hated how to them he was 'Bianca's little brother.'

At least their presence here today was good for one thing. It meant that he and Percy would both definitely be on the same Capture the Flag team as Sadie and Carter.

Nico pulled shadows around himself as he waited for the others to finish dinner, to make sure that no one would see him. He didn't feel like making small talk with Thalia or any of the other Hunters or campers. No, the only people he wanted to talk to were Percy, Sadie, and Carter.

Deep down though . . . deep down he was kind of glad that an emergency had arisen. He knew it was selfish and it made him feel lousy to think that he was benefitting from the fact that Sadie and Carter had made some very dangerous missteps, but was it wrong to be glad that he got to have some high risk, breaking-the-rules fun with his best friends? Nico wasn't sure, and felt guilty about it anyway. The same way he felt guilty about how sometimes he almost didn't care that Bianca was gone, because even though he'd lost his sister, he'd gained a big brother. Those were thoughts that made him hate himself, and thoughts that he would never, ever voice, or let anyone else know . . . except for Anubis who was in his head, but who at least had the decency to pretend he was ignorant of those thoughts.

Nico knew that the parasite god was well aware of all the things he didn't want him to know. It was kind of like trying not to think of elephants, knowing that there was someone in his mind hearing every single thought that went through his head, when it came to the things he didn't want anyone else to know. But Anubis pretended that he didn't know, and Nico pretended that he didn't know that Anubis knew, and that was for the best.

Right now, Nico could barely feel Anubis in his mind, since the god was doing his best to keep the least amount of his soul as possible in Nico while he was at camp. The god had stirred briefly during dinner, sensing Nico's alarm at Sadie's and Carter's arrival, but had retreated again since nothing could be done immediately.

Finally, dinner broke up, and the campers began heading to their cabins to get ready for Capture the Flag. Nico kept himself cloaked in darkness and remained unseen. This allowed him to watch everyone who walked back to the cabins. Brendan Noonan was trying to hit on the Hunters, and Nico took joy in seeing him get kicked in the groin when finally one of the Hunters who was wearing steel-toed-boots had enough. The Ares practically marched back to their cabin, very obviously on a mission. It was obvious that they wanted to break Camp Half-Blood's losing streak, or at least break some of the Hunters' bones. That was one of the reason that Nico liked the Ares kids the best, of all the other campers, except Percy. The other reasons were that they were the only ones whose entire cabin treated Nico decently. The other cabins were all split, with some of them thinking Nico was okay, and others thinking he was a freak.

Then Percy came by with Annabeth and Thalia, trying to defend himself against their combined onslaughts.

"I know that something's been going on between you two," said Annabeth. "Thalia coming to check up on Nico because Bianca asked her to just proves it."

"Nothing is going on," said Percy. "I don't know why Bianca thinks that he's in trouble or that he needs her help, but he doesn't."

"That's not what Bianca thinks," said Thalia.

"I know," said Percy, "I just said that, didn't I? But you're all acting like he's still the same ten-year-old child we had to save from that manticore."

"Because he is," said Thalia impatiently.

"No, he's not," insisted Percy.

"Oh right, he's what? Twelve now? Those two years make all the difference, I'm sure," said Thalia.

"Percy's right that Nico's not exactly a kid anymore," said Annabeth, sounding reluctant. "Nico may be young but he's grown up a lot faster than he should have had to. He's the one who convinced Hades to show up with his army of darkness at Mt. Olympus, remember? His father takes his advice seriously and from what I've heard, Hades completely freaked out last month because he thought that those Egyptian magicians and gods we've been hearing so much about kidnapped Nico. I heard from Chiron that Hades was getting ready to declare war on the House of Life and the Egyptian pantheon, and Poseidon and Zeus were both going to back him."

"I never heard about that?" said Thalia looking surprised and wary.

"It was a big misunderstanding," said Percy quickly. "I got it firsthand from Nico. Some House of Life freaks jumped him in a graveyard because they thought he was Anubis." He gave the edited version of the story that he and Nico had prepared in advance.

"They thought he was Anubis?" asked Annabeth sounding suspicious. "Did they somehow miss the fact that he doesn't have a jackal head or were they blind magicians?"

"Anubis can appear human when he wants to," said Percy, "and when he does he actually looks enough like Anubis that they could be brothers . . . or at least that's what Nico told me," he added hastily.

"So what exactly happened?" Thalia wanted to know. "Did they kidnap the kid?"

Nico bristled at being referred to as a kid but he wasn't so prideful that he was going to drop his cover to correct her for calling him a kid.

"No," lied Percy. "Nico told me that he opened a portal to Hades and sent the magicians' pet jackal to Cerberus to use as a chew toy, then the real Anubis showed up and drove the magicians off before he had to."

"The real Anubis showed up in some random graveyard?" asked Annabeth incredulously.

"Not really so random," said Percy, and it actually sounded like he was telling the truth. He must, Nico thought, have been rehearsing the story for when he finally had to tell it. "Nico and Anubis are friends. Anubis was meeting Nico there to play Mythomagic."

"To play Mythomagic . . ." echoed Thalia.

"Why didn't you tell me this sooner?" demanded Annabeth.

Percy blinked at her. "You didn't ask."

"You should have told me without me having to ask," said Annabeth. "For something this big –"

"I did tell you, back when it happened," said Percy. "Remember? I told you and Chiron both about that dream I had of Nico, and neither of you thought there was any cause for concern. And you were right. There wasn't. And there still isn't. Nothing is wrong with Nico."

"Then how is he suddenly so strong that neither Hades nor Bianca can keep tabs on him anymore?" asked Thalia. "The gods are always supposed to be able to keep tabs on their children."

"That was Anubis' work, I'm pretty sure," said Percy. "Nico told me that Hades couldn't sense him because he was in a graveyard that Anubis was . . . possessing . . . inhabiting . . . or something –"

"The Egyptian gods can take a human or a place as their host," said Annabeth. "Unlike the Greek gods, it's the only way they can manifest themselves in our world. At least that's what we've been learning in classes."

"Yeah. So Anubis was possessing the graveyard, which made it his territory, and not even Hades' power could break through or whatever," Percy floundered in his attempt to explain the partial truth. "If Bianca still can't see him, then it might be because of the amulet Anubis gave him."

"Amulet?" asked Annabeth. "What amulet?"

"It's some kind of jackal hieroglyphic thing," said Percy. "It has Anubis' blessing which gives him some protection against some things, and it looks like being spied on by dead people is one of those things."

Thalia started to nod, looking satisfied, but Annabeth looked doubtful.

"I don't know about that," she said. "Egyptian magic and Greek magic don't mix. Or to be more precise, they can't mix. The Egyptian gods can't take demigods as hosts, it just doesn't work, and believe me, they've tried a whole lot."

Nico rolled his eyes and saw Percy looking as though he'd like to do the same thing.

"Their diviners can't see us in their prophecies any more than our oracles can see them," continued Annabeth. "Some of the spells work, and some don't, but I'm pretty sure that anti-surveillance spells would be along the same lines as divination –"

"You've lost me," said Percy.

"Me too," said Thalia.

Nico didn't follow them any further, but as they drifted away Annabeth was trying to explain magic frequencies and how the Egyptian ones were different than the Greek ones, a lesson which Nico and Percy had both already gotten from the Egyptian god Thoth. Percy wouldn't betray him, Nico knew. He'd keep his secret unless he absolutely had to reveal it. Nico didn't doubt that, not even for a second. He felt a little bit bad about leaving Percy to have to fend off both girls and their questions, but he needed to wait for Carter and Sadie and then stick close to them.

He didn't think getting them out of the camp would be too hard. He couldn't shadow travel them out of the camp because the camp's protections wouldn't allow it. He knew because he'd tried to shadow travel himself out before, but it hadn't worked very well. He'd been weaker then, and he was pretty sure that if he had to, he could break through the defenses and shadow travel himself out, but it would be akin to diving through a hedge of thorns, and he wasn't going to risk hurting anyone else trying it.

Still, it wouldn't be difficult to get to the edge of the camp, especially with everyone distracted by the Capture the Flag game. He could just lead Sadie and Carter across the borders and then shadow travel them back to their house, or wherever it was they wanted to go. Easy as pie.

* * *

Carter was glad that he hadn't stowed his sword in his Duat locker, the way Sadie had stowed her weapons. Their hosts were arming them, but the Greek gear really wasn't to Carter's taste. It wasn't to Sadie's either if the look on her face was any hint.

"I feel like I should be in an opera wearing this get-up," she said dryly, adjusting her helmet.

"You'd need braids and horns on the helmet for that," Carter told her.

"Oh, ha ha."

"It doesn't look bad," Christine assured her. "Besides, everyone's wearing pretty much the same stuff."

"You'll be glad you have it," said Ashton. "This game can get pretty rough."

"What are the rules?" Carter wanted to know.

"First team to capture the other team's flag wins. No deliberate maiming or killing. Everything else goes," explained Ashton.

"Wait, deliberate?" asked Sadie. "Does that mean indeliberate maiming is allowed?"

Ashton shrugged. "Things happen. Just keep your armor on, and your sword point up and you'll probably be okay."

Carter wasn't sure he liked the sound of that, particularly because he had the feeling that if he or Sadie used their magic things would turn out bad. He and Sadie followed Ashton and Christine into the forest where everyone else was heading. Sadie would have continued on with them and tried to keep up, but Carter got her attention and motioned for her to hang back with him.

"What?" asked Sadie once they were behind the group, and far enough away that they wouldn't be overheard.

"We shouldn't stick with the pack," explained Carter. "When Percy and Nico come to get us it'll draw attention if they have to pull us away from everyone."

"Good thinking," said Nico, appearing right beside them. "I'm glad you made it easy for me."

Sadie and Carter both jumped but smiled as they realized who it was who'd snuck up on them. "Hey," said Carter, giving him a light punch to the shoulder in greeting. "Long time no see. We were starting to get worried."

Nico's brow furrowed. "Worried?"

"You've been gone like two weeks," said Sadie, looking annoyed.

"I know," said Nico. "But why would that worry you?"

The Kane siblings exchanged glances. "Because when someone you see on a regular basis suddenly disappears without any notice and is gone for a long time, you can't help but worry," said Carter. _Especially when said someone is only twelve years old and lives in a world as dangerous as the one we're in, _he added silently because he knew Nico wouldn't appreciate the reference to his age or the inference that he couldn't take care of himself.

"Oh." Nico's perplexed look changed to one of clarity. "Oh. Sorry. I didn't think of that," he admitted.

Carter saw Sadie looking at Nico with pity and knew the same expression was probably on his face too. It would be really sad to not think that any cared enough about you to worry, and even sadder not to realize how sorry a situation that would be. Though, Nico seemed blissfully ignorant of his sad situation, which was probably for the best. He mistook the looks they aimed at him as worry for their current situation.

"Hey," he said, stepping a bit closer. "It's going to be okay. You don't have to be worried about anything anymore."

Carter laughed. "That would be nice, but I don't foresee us having nothing to worry about for at least another year. Probably a lot longer."

"Still no luck finding other magicians?" asked Nico.

"Oh, we find plenty of magicians. They're just all House of Life freaks," said Sadie. "That's how we ended up here. Kind of."

A smile twitched on Nico's face. "You'll have to tell me about that. But later. People are going to notice you guys talking to me and it'll draw attention. Around here I . . . well, people just pay too much attention to the stuff I do for absolutely no good reason. Percy too, even more than me. So listen quick. When the game starts, the two of you stick together and start going in the direction that Percy heads in, but stay back far enough that it doesn't look like you're tailing him. When you get to the big rock pile go around to the side that has a sapling growing out of it and head in the direction the tree is pointing. That will still be on our side, so if you see any of the Hunters just pretend you don't. They'll try to slip past you. I'll meet you there. Okay?"

"Wait, go over that one more time," said Sadie.

"No, it's okay, I've got it," said Carter. "We'll see you there."

Nico nodded and turned his back to them. As he walked away the shadows seemed to thicken around him and he blended into the gloom. Carter kept a close eye on him waiting to see if he would become fully invisible, but he didn't, at least not while Carter was watching him. That was interesting, he thought. He didn't become invisible so much as make it impossible to notice him unless you already knew h e was there.

"You sure you got that down?" asked Sadie. "I don't want to end up lost in these woods."

"I can memorize a simple list of instructions," said Carter. "Come on. We need to find Percy before the game starts."

"I thought we weren't supposed to talk to him," said Sadie.

"Not to talk to him, or even go near him," said Carter. "To follow him when the game starts, remember?"

"Oh yeah. Hey Carter?"

"What?"

"Do you get the feeling that this plan is a little too . . . well . . ."

"Easy?" asked Carter. "Yeah. I do. And I'm fully prepared for it to fail miserably for that fact alone. But until it goes south, what can we really do?"

"Good point," said Sadie. "Is that what they call being optimistic?"

Carter laughed. "Not quite."

* * *

Thalia separated herself from the rest of the Hunters the moment the battle started. Well, it wasn't a real battle, but it might as well have been. Everyone knew how these things went down.

But tonight it actually wasn't really a battle for Thalia. She was leaving it to her sisters to vanquish their enemies and return triumphantly with their flag. Tonight Thalia was on a hunt.

Her prey was very elusive, she knew. Hard to pin down, damn near impossible to see once dark had started to fall. No, the only way she could track her prey was by scent. That was the only way to hunt down Children of the Underworld at night. You had to follow the smell of death that clung to them . . . well, not really clung to them. _Was_ them. Thalia hadn't noticed it the first time she met Bianca and Nico. Hadn't noticed it while on the quest with Bianca before she died. But she had noticed it the time that she, Percy, and Nico got conscripted on a quest by Persephone, who'd spirited them all to the Underworld. She wasn't sure if it was because when she first met them, their powers hadn't begun to develop and they were still more alive than . . . well . . . she didn't like to think of either di Angelo sibling as dead even though Bianca was dead and Nico would probably be declared dead by any modern doctor who got a chance to examine him. So to rephrase, she wasn't sure if it was because when she first met them, neither was tainted by the death magic that came with their powers, or if it was because her sense of smell had improved since becoming a Hunter.

_Maybe I'll ask Annabeth and Percy later_, she thought as she skimmed across the forest floor. _Yes, that'll be a good conversation. 'Hey guys, is it just me, or does Nico smell like corpses?'_

She skirted the main areas where she was sure there'd be guards and fighting. The wind made it tricky, and led Thalia too far west before she realized that she'd passed the point where she should have tried to intercept Nico. She actually almost ran right into two campers: a tall pretty girl with caramel colored hair, and a dark skinned boy with a sword that didn't look like anything Thalia had seen any heroes using in battle before. She didn't recognize either of them and couldn't peg either of their godly parents because neither of them had any trademark signs, like camouflage pants or daisy chains around their necks or make up caked on a full inch thick. And she got close enough that she would have noticed that. In fact, Thalia was almost positive that they'd spotted her, and had been preparing to shoot them in the helmets and hope that would knock them out. But then the moment passed and they walked on as though nothing was amiss, and Thalia breathed a sigh of relief at her good luck. Those campers had to be new ones. Any trained hero would have definitely spotted her.

Back on track again, she took greater care to be stealthy because she could feel that she was getting closer. The temperature of the air seemed to drop several degrees. The smell of death got stronger. The shadows got thicker. Thalia paid particular attention to the spots that seemed the darkest and strained her eyes, and then she saw her quarry.

Nico was just standing there, his hands in his pockets, shivering slightly and looking like he was waiting for someone which didn't make any sense. They couldn't have placed him all the way up here as a guard, could they have? No, Annabeth would never have gone for that. This spot was too far out of the way for that and Nico was too strong a fighter, too good at stealth for them to give him some minor task. Unless . . .

Thalia rolled her eyes as she realized what was going on. Obviously Annabeth had realized that Thalia would try to corner Nico instead of focusing on the game. So, to get Thalia out of the way, she sent Nico to some remote, out of the way place of no importance and had him wait there to draw her to him. She had to hand it to Annabeth, it was a good move. And it was helpful to Thalia as well since Nico would be more likely to speak freely without other people around who might overhear.

Thalia moved soundlessly through the forest and waited until she was only about five yards away from Nico before revealing herself by pinning the collar of Nico's jacket to the tree behind him with an arrow. Five more arrows followed within the span of a second, pinning the other side of his collar, and both his sleeves, above and under his arms so that he wouldn't be going anywhere.

To his credit, Nico stood stock still when he realized what was happening, rather than flailing and trying to make himself a more difficult target. That would have increased Thalia's chances of missing and actually hitting him by about fifty-fold. It showed impressive control that he had resisted panicking like that. Most demigods' ADHD-like battle reflexes would have kicked in and they wouldn't have been able to help themselves.

Nico must have released the shadows that he'd kept himself wrapped up in, because suddenly he was much easier to see. He turned his head as much as the arrows would allow to watch Thalia stepping out from amongst the trees. His expression was anxious, but not scared as he regarded Thalia.

"Hey Nico," said Thalia when it became obvious that he was waiting for her to speak to find out what she wanted. "We need to talk."

* * *

AN: Sorry for any mistakes. I wanted to post this before I leave for my last dr. appointment. (wish me luck!) and b/c I'll be missing another day of school, I'll have work to catch up on after. But tomorrow will be a good day, I'm going to go to the bookstore, get the next two Gargoyle Legends books and stay up all night reading! They're so good, and in the next one my beloved Abdiel has to confront his adopted family who lied and told him his sister was dead, and it's been like waiting for the Lost Hero all over again!

Oh, and yes, Piper from last chapter was the Piper from The Lost Hero. I'm already off script and after thinking about it, I got some ideas. That might make some of you wary, but please give me the benefit of the doubt b/c I think I can turn those ideas into some good stories. But if there's something you really do or don't want to see leave it in a review or PM so I can try to give you what you want. :)


	5. Chapter 5

5

Nico wondered what the heck it was about him that made everyone in the world feel the need to try to capture, restrain, or kidnap him. Was it because he was Italian? Or did they just not like his face?

"Oh, hello Thalia," he responded to her greeting. "Now's not really a great time."

"Why? Were you planning on going somewhere?" asked Thalia. "Because it'll be kind of hard with all those arrows pinning you there."

Nico scowled. "Thanks for ruining my aviator jacket, by the way. Really. Thanks for that."

"That thing's old and ugly anyway. And isn't that the one you were wearing when we first met you? It doesn't fit you much better. Get something that you don't get lost in when you try to put it on," advised Thalia. She moved to stand right in front of him, smirking.

She wasn't really being unfriendly, Nico forced himself to remember. It was a game of Capture the Flag and they were on opposite sides. But why she'd come all the way out here he wasn't sure. And now really wasn't a good time, because he had to smuggle a couple Egyptian magicians out of camp before anyone found out what they were. So he felt himself getting frustrated at Thalia even more than he would have if it was just the jacket he was worried about.

"I've had this as long as I can remember," he said angrily. "I think it was my grandfather's."

That made Thalia pause. "I'm sorry," she said immediately. "I didn't know."

Nico would have shrugged if his arms hadn't been pinned. "Do you think you could get your arrowheads out of my jacket?" he asked as politely as he could.

Thalia's face colored. "I'm sorry," she said again. "My bow . . . there's a lot of weight on the string –"

"They're not going to come out, are they?" asked Nico miserably.

"No. They're stuck in the tree too deep. We'll have to cut you free," said Thalia. "I really am sorry, Nico."

_What's going on?_ asked the voice in Nico's head. Anubis had been checking in periodically to see what the situation with the Kanes was. He'd come at a bad time. _I can't leave you alone for five minutes without you getting yourself captured! _

_It's just Thalia,_ Nico told him. _And I'm not captured._

_Then why are you pinned to a tree?_

"Because I freaking feel like it, okay?"

"What?" asked Thalia, looking at him oddly.

"Nothing," said Nico quickly.

_Well done, _commented Anubis.

_Shut up._ To Thalia he said, "Could you just cut me free then? Carefully. I want to try to get this mended."

"I'll cut you free in a minute," said Thalia. Obviously her guilt about ruining his jacket only went so far. "You and I need to talk."

"But I don't want to talk," said Nico, his sulkiness returning.

_Your jacket will actually be easy to fix, _said Anubis._ Not for you, since you're a horrible magician, but the Kanes can do it for you. Just ask Sadie to use a hi-nehm spell on it and it'll be good as new._

"Really? That's great!" said Nico, cheering up immediately.

"What?"

Nico blushed and shook his head. He'd gotten used to Anubis' presence in his mind being at a minimum the past few days. It was amazing how quickly he got out of practice at carrying on multiple conversations. "Nothing." he said again.

Thalia regarded him with curiosity for several seconds. "You know what I want to talk with you about?" she asked.

"I can guess," said Nico. "Bianca can't spy on me anymore and asked you to find out why."

"She wasn't spying," said Thalia. "She was watching over you."

"Which, from where I'm standing, seems a lot like spying," said Nico.

"She cares about you –"

"I know," said Nico. "And I still love her. She's my sister, even if she did abandon me. But she's gone, and I'm still here, and she doesn't have any right to tell me what to do anymore, Thalia. I'm twelve or thirteen. In Ancient Egypt I'd be considered an adult."

_Uh, Nico . . ._

"We're not in Ancient Egypt," said Thalia. "But speaking of them . . . Percy seems to think that the reason Bianca can't watch over you anymore is because of something Anubis did."

_I know what I'm doing, _Nico told the god in his head._ We had to get to this part of the conversation eventually. Maybe if I hurry it up I can get her to cut me free before the Kanes get here._

_I see. Not a bad tactic._

"Anubis is my friend," said Nico, looking at Thalia defiantly. Then he faltered as he realized what he'd said . . . and that it was –

_True?_ Anubis supplied and gave a mental chuckle.

_I never gave it any thought, not really, _Nico told him_. But . . ._

_ But we are friends, strange as it seems, _said Anubis_. Alright, Nico, chick-flick moment over. You have your cousin to deal with._

"Oh, right," said Nico then froze.

"Why do you keep doing that?" asked Thalia. "Saying strange things? It's almost like you're . . ."

Nico shrunk back against the tree trunk, worried that Thalia had figured it out.

_Claim amnesia. Or dementia. Blame your confusion on the River Lethe_, said Anubis.

_Good idea._

"Sometimes . . ." Nico tried to give Thalia puppy-dog eyes, "I . . . forget what I'm doing . . . or saying, right in the middle of it. I don't know if I've always been like that, or only the past few years. I think it might be a side effect from the River Lethe."

"Oh." Thalia stepped close enough that Nico could have spit on her, were he so inclined. "I'm sorry."

"I don't want your pity. All I want is for all you Hunters to leave me alone," said Nico. "Every time I see you, it reminds me what I lost because of you, and I'm trying very hard not to hold grudges, because I know that's my fatal flaw, but that doesn't make it hurt any less! So just leave me alone!"

The look Thalia gave him held even more pity than the last one. "Okay," she said. "I will try to honor your wish, Nico. But I also need to honor my fallen comrade's wish as well. Bianca –"

"Bianca doesn't get to choose my friends! She doesn't get to say that it's too dangerous to be friends with an Egyptian god with 3500 attack power. Not after she chose to join the Hunters and got killed on her very first quest with you," said Nico. He didn't mean to be bitter, but it was true. He'd made a dumb choice of friends too, when he thought that Minos was really trying to help him, but since then he'd done better. And he was still alive. Besides . . . "Anubis looks out for me. The amulet he gave me protects me from Egyptian magic, like the kind the House of Life freaks use. And if one of the side effects is that it keeps people from spying on me, then that's an added plus."

"Could I see the amulet?" asked Thalia.

"No," said Nico contritely.

Thalia sighed and reached for Nico's neck. She grabbed the cord that he kept the jackal pendant on and pulled it out from beneath his shirt. Nico glared at her as she inspected it.

"I can feel there is power in this," said Thalia, taking a step closer. "But is it enough to shield you from a Child of the Underworld?"

It was the proximity that did it. Or at least that's what Anubis would tell him it probably was later, and Nico would believe it because . . . well because the last time a woman had gotten in his personal space like that, it had been Aziza the sadistic House of Life bitch, and she had been taunting him about the collar she'd put on his neck that had kept him in too much pain to think, let alone move. Thalia and Aziza were about the same height, and they both had dark hair. And when Nico tried to shrink away from her as his mind took him back to the last time he'd been restrained, he lost all reason and started to panic finding that he was pinned again.

"No!" he cried. "Stay back! D-d-d-don't!"

_Nico? _asked Anubis._ Nico!_

Thalia dropped the pendant and looked at him alarmed. "Nico? What's wrong?"

"Don't touch me! P-please, just s-stay back!" He tried to raise his arms to shield himself, but of course they were still pinned, which only sent him into more panic. Without regard for his jacket or anything else, he began thrashing, trying to break free.

_You're not there, Nico! _shouted Anubis in his head._ She's not Aziza. She's not going to hurt you!_

"Nico? Nico!" Thalia grabbed him and tried to hold him still.

_"Don't touch me!"_

"Hey!"

"Get away from them you bitch!"

Thalia jumped back as Sadie and Carter arrived on scene, Carter wary and focused on defending, Sadie not sure whether to try to help Nico or attack Thalia. Some part of Nico's mind realized this as he was thrashing, trying to free himself, and making the holes in his jacket bigger. Sadie chose comforting Nico over clobbering Thalia and turned her back to the Hunter, as Carter moved to stand directly between Thalia and the younger kids.

"Nico," said Sadie in a soothing voice. "What's wrong? Are you hurt? Nico?"

Sadie's voice got through to him, somehow. Nico wasn't sure how. Maybe because Sadie had been there with him. They'd had to watch out for each other there, protect each other. Neither of them would have been able to escape without the other. But whatever the reason, he managed to calm down enough to see reason.

"Sadie?"

"Hey," said Sadie. "Are you okay?"

"Y-y-yeah." Nico grimaced and made an effort to stop stuttering. "Sorry."

"Nico?" asked Thalia. "What happened?"

"I . . . don't know."

"Did she hurt you?" asked Carter, keeping his sword pointed at Thalia.

"No," said Nico. "I don't . . . I don't know what happened."

"You sure she didn't do this?" asked Sadie. "She's got a bow. You're pinned here with arrows. Do the math."

"She pinned me, but didn't hurt me," said Nico.

Sadie grabbed one of the arrows and tried to yank it out, but as Thalia predicted, it wasn't coming.

"There's a knife in my boot," Nico told Sadie. "Could you get it out and cut me free?"

"I want an explanation, right now," said Carter. His back was still to Nico and Sadie, so Nico couldn't see his face, but he had never heard Carter use that tone of voice before.

"I didn't hurt him," said Thalia. "I wouldn't hurt him. Please let me introduce myself. I'm Thalia, leader of the Hunters of Artemis and Daughter of Zeus. I came here to have a word with Nico and only pinned him in place so that he wouldn't run away while I was trying to have a conversation with him."

"You two are cousins?" asked Carter.

"Er –" Thalia blinked then shrugged. "In a manner of speaking, but . . . well, you know how it is with demigods."

Nico started as he remembered that he and Thalia really were parallel-cousins, the same as him and Percy. The genetic relation, or lack thereof, was the same, but somehow it was strange to think of Thalia that way, even though acknowledging Percy as family now felt like the most natural thing in the world.

"She didn't do anything to me," said Nico because he could tell Carter wasn't convinced. "I . . . I don't know what happened. I guess I got claustrophobic and panicked."

"You're claustrophobic? About people crowding you?" asked Thalia, enlightenment dawning on her face.

"I guess." Nico stood still and tried not to wince as Sadie cut his aviator jacket to free him from the arrowheads. Even if the jacket could be fixed, he didn't like it being cut apart.

Suddenly there was an odd buzzing in Nico's ears. The sound he always heard when a soul was released from somewhere nearby.

"Uh oh."

"What?" asked Sadie.

"I think there's been an accident," said Nico. "Someone close by just died. I could feel their soul leave."

It wasn't anyone he knew closely at least. He immediately concentrated on the faces of the people he really didn't want to be dead. Percy was a given, Annabeth he liked well enough too, Rachel who was always kind to him, Clarisse who always picked Hades cabin first when she led in Capture the Flag, Jake Mason who made anyone from his cabin who insulted Nico clean out all the forges. Thankfully all of their souls remained tethered safely on earth.

"Do you know who it was or how it happened?" asked Thalia.

"No to both," said Nico.

"We should find them," said Thalia. "Someone else could be hurt and need help."

Nico hesitated and looked at Carter and Sadie. He needed to get them out of there. The longer they were at camp, the more likely they were to be found out. But how did he refuse something like this without drawing suspicion?

But Sadie and Carter were both nodding, Carter as he lowered his sword and his guard, deciding that Thalia really wasn't a threat, and Sadie as she handed Nico his knife back, hilt first.

"Can you locate the body of whoever died?" asked Thalia.

Nico stared at her feeling a bit offended. "What kind of question is that?"

Thalia held up her hands defensively. "I'm sorry, I just assumed since you're a Child of the Underworld –"

"Of course I can locate the corpse." Nico slid the knife back into his boot and turned in the direction of the body.

* * *

It was an Aphrodite daughter who'd been killed. Thalia didn't recognize her but could tell by the perfectly applied makeup that made her look more like a broken doll than a murder victim, and the pristine armor that looked more like props from a kid's movie where everyone's equipment was all shiny and new, rather than scratched and chinked and battle tested like the gear real heroes wore. She'd been killed by a single puncture wound in her back. The kind, Thalia noted uncomfortably, that was most often caused by arrows.

Nico supplied her name as he closed her eyelids and placed two coins on them. "Martina Amourzelle, daughter of Aphrodite. May your spirit fly swiftly to the other side, and may these coins aid you in your passage. Father, please let her judgment come to pass quickly, with no delays, and show her mercy . . . because she showed kindness to your son."

Thalia bowed her head in respect for several seconds then removed a whistle from her parka and blew into it. A haunting note pierced the air and carried for miles, and every Hunter who heard it immediately stopped what they were doing and began to race toward Thalia. "Do you have some way of contacting Chiron?" she asked Nico, who had sat down on the ground looking tired.

"I could summon a ghost or a zombie to take him a message," said Nico dryly. He rested his chin on his knees, making it clear he had no intention of doing that, which was just as well. It really wasn't appropriate to call up the dead to announce the death of one of the newly dead.

The two demigods who Thalia had just met, but learned were called Sadie and Carter, were discussing something amongst themselves and seemed to be arguing. Sadie appeared to win the argument and when they turned back toward Nico and Thalia, she was holding some sort of firework in her hand.

"Got a light?" she asked.

Nico produced an old-timey looking brass Zippo lighter from the pocket of his aviator jacket and held it out to Sadie, reaching up to hand it to her. Thalia noticed that Sadie clasped her hand around Nico's when she took the lighter instead of simply taking the lighter. She gave his hand a comforting squeeze then stepped back and set the firework down and went to light it.

"Did you have that thing a minute ago?" asked Thalia realizing that it was a pretty big firework and that it would have been a trick to conceal something that big.

"No, I pulled it out of my secret locker in the netherworld," answered Sadie. "Fire in the hold!"

"Fire in the _hole_," corrected Carter.

"Whatever."

"When you say things wrong you look ignorant."

"At least that's only when I say things wrong. You look ignorant all the time."

"Guys," said Nico in a strained voice.

"Sorry, Nico," said Carter immediately. "She . . . Martina was a friend of yours?"

"An acquaintance. She is . . . was . . . always kind to me, sometimes at her own expense. The rest of her cabin is comprised of bitches or spineless wretches who are too afraid to think for themselves."

"I'm sorry, man."

_They know each other_, realized Thalia, watching the exchange._ They know each other well. Are those two really new here? Or were they loners who Nico knew before they came to camp?_

She didn't have much time to ponder on this before the rest of the demigods began to arrive, alerted to their position and the fact that something was wrong by Thalia's whistle and Sadie's firework. Several Hunters were the first to arrive, followed quickly by Percy and Annabeth who must have been closeby. Percy ran onto the scene with definite worry in his eyes which only seemed to intensify when he saw Nico sitting beside the dead girl, Sadie, Carter, and Thalia all closeby while the Hunters hung back.

"What happened?" asked Percy. He seemed very nervous.

"There was an accident, but we didn't see it," said Nico quickly before Thalia could talk. "I felt her soul depart. I led Sadie and Carter here because Thalia thought someone else might be hurt, like if the accident had happened to more than one person because we didn't know what had happened. All we knew was that someone was dead. When we got here Martina was already gone, obviously, or else I wouldn't have known where to find her, but there was no one else here. Whoever caused the accident was long gone. Oh, and the reason Thalia went along with us without thinking I was up to a trick was because the three of us had her outnumbered. She ambushed me and ruined my jacket, but Sadie and Carter stumbled upon us and we got the upper hand. Then this happened so we came here."

Thalia got the feeling that there was more to what Nico was saying than she understood. Yes, something was definitely going on between Nico and Percy. Whether or not Sadie and Carter were a part of it, she wasn't sure, but Nico and Percy were keeping secrets. Thalia glanced at Annabeth and saw that her friend had come to the same conclusion.

But Thalia's original mission had to be put on hold because more campers and Hunters had begun to arrive and one of the campers made the accusation that Thalia knew they would but had been dreading.

"The Hunters killed Martina!"

* * *

AN: My last dr visit went great! I don't have to go back to the specialist again, just to physical therapy at home, and best of all _I got to meet Heather Fleming!_ She's the one who writes the Gargoyle Legends books I've been raving about to anyone who'll listen. My sister pretended to forget I was coming so I was locked out of her dorm and ended up spending all day at the bookstore, then I heard them make an announcement that Heather Fleming was there signing books. She was surrounded by people for a long time, and it took me awhile to work up the nerve to talk to her. I was surprised b/c she was so nice and I was expecting someone older and scholarly-looking because her books make it obvious she knows alot about mythology, but she turned out to be about my sister's age but 50x nicer. I got to ask her questions about writing and how she got such amazing ideas, and about Abdiel.

Afterward she saw me walking back to my sister's dorm and offered me a ride, then waited with me until my sister got her butt back and let me in. Which was really nice of her b/c it was cold and I don't like walking around in unfamiliar cities, alone, at night no less. But it made me wonder why I couldn't have someone smart and responsible like her as a sister instead of a selfish idiot who steals my pain meds and leaves me locked out when it's freezing. That aside, it was great to discover that the author of such amazing books is also such a great person. And the next two books in the series are even better than the first two! They just keep getting better and now I don't know how I'm going to wait until March for book 5! But I'm very happy and super-inspired and I'm planning a book of my own, and in the meantime going to write lots of fanfics as practice. I caught up on my homework in record time so I could finish this chap faster b/c meeting and talking to Heather Fleming made me want to write and craft stories just like she does. She's the reason that updates are going to be coming faster, so it's only fair that I mention how awesome she is here and give credit where it's due. I'm going to try to get the next chap up tomorrow, and answer questions from reviews then, but it's late and I've gotta sleep. Good night!


	6. Chapter 6

6

"The Hunters killed Martina!" screamed Drew, a daughter of Aphrodite and a first-class bitch if Annabeth had ever met one.

Murmurs ran through crowd as Chiron arrived and saw what had happened.

"They didn't," spoke up Nico, his voice cutting through all the accusing whispers like a cold wind.

Annabeth watched the son of Hades, as she had been for the past few days, since she'd realized that Nico and Percy were up to something. Nico looked, for the most part, aloof. Like he didn't care what was going on one way or the other. Only someone who knew him would notice the weariness in his eyes and the tenseness of his jaw. Martina, Annabeth remembered, had been the only child of Aphrodite who was both nice and had a mind of her own. Martina had been nice to everyone, stood up for people being bullied, and did what she thought was right regardless of how many times she had to wear the shoes of shame because of it. The Aphrodite cabin had just lost the one decent camper they had, and Nico was feeling that loss even if he was trying not to show it.

"Of course they did!" screamed Drew. "Who else would kill a daughter of Aphrodite? Who else would want to but those pathetic, butch, butt-ugly –"

"You think you know more about death than me?" challenged Nico.

Drew glared at him. "What are you saying? Are you confessing to killing her? Did you use your death touch on her?"

"No, and no again."

"Calm down, Drew, and let Nico speak," ordered Chiron. "Nico, were you the one who discovered Martina like this?"

"I felt her spirit depart," explained Nico again. "Sadie, Carter, and I were facing off with Thalia at the time. We called a truce to investigate and see if there was anyone hurt but still alive who we could help. Martina was the only one we found."

"A likely story!" said Drew shrilly. "You probably killed her yourself, didn't you?"

"How dare you make accusations like that?" shouted the new camper, Piper. "Did you miss the part where he has three witnesses who were with him when they found her like that? Why are you trying to make this harder for everyone than it has to be?"

"Shut up, Dumpster-girl!"

"You shut up, Plastic-face!"

"Why you –"

"Martina was killed by a wound to the back, caused by a small, sharp, cylindrical object," Nico spoke over them. His voice was emotionless as he continued. "It entered her back, on her left side at an upward angle, and pierced both her spine and her heart. She died instantly. She didn't feel a thing."

There were several moments of silence as everyone took this in.

"What do you think the wound was caused by, Nico?" asked Chiron.

"I know what it was caused by," said Nico. "It was an arrow, but –"

People immediately started murmuring again. Annabeth closed her eyes. This was not going to go over well. The Hunters were going to be blamed for this, distrust would be sewn, it would take either a very big common enemy or a miracle to get them past this. She could feel the beginnings of a headache building.

Then Nico offered them that miracle.

"SHUT UP! EVERYONE SHUT UP AND LET ME FINISH!"

It wasn't often that Nico raised his voice. And when an angry son of Hades demands that you shut up, most people are smart enough to shut their traps.

"The arrow wasn't shot," said Nico, his voice back to its normal cool tone. "All you fools seemed to miss the part where I said it entered at an upward angle. So unless someone was lying on the ground, aiming upward when they took their shot, that wasn't how it happened. Someone stabbed Martina with that arrow. And that someone either knows something about human anatomy and the cleanest, fastest ways to kill someone, or was really damn lucky. You can inspect the wound for yourselves. It's precise and almost clean enough to have been a professional hit."

"You think Martina was deliberately targeted?" asked Annabeth.

Nico shrugged. "I said almost professional. A real professional wouldn't have stabbed her with an arrow. Stabbing someone with an arrow says they didn't go there planning to kill someone."

He had a point, even if it was disturbing how much he knew about death and killing. "So where does that leave us?" asked Annabeth.

"How in Hades should I know?"

"Nico," said Percy hesitantly. "Do you think you could –"

"No," Nico cut him off. "It wouldn't do any good."

"What wouldn't?" asked Annabeth. She felt annoyed that Nico had known what Percy meant before she could even figure it out.

"Trying to speak with Martina. It wouldn't do any good because she didn't see anything."

"You don't know that," said one of the Hunters.

"I do know that."

"Just because she was gone before she could feel anything –"

"I felt her soul leave," said Nico. "And the only thing she felt was confusion. No anger or betrayal or hurt or suspicion. Just confusion, the kind that comes from walking along minding your own business then being dead without even having a clue how it happened or who could have done it. If I thought that speaking to her would do any good then I'd try it, but I know it won't. All I'd be doing is dragging her out of line, making her have to wait longer for her judgment, and dredging up her pain and I won't do it."

"You sure you're not just afraid she'll name you as her murderer?" asked Drew.

SLAP!

Sadie's hand connected with Drew's face so hard that Drew actually fell on her butt. "Shut up and stop acting like PMS Barbie you bigoted, thick-headed, bloody stupid, yammering –"

"Sadie!" Carter grabbed Sadie's hand and dragged her back.

"I'm just saying what every decent person here's thinking, even if they're too spineless to speak up!"

"It's okay, Nico," said Annabeth. "We all know that you do all you can to help us. No one here has forgotten how you saved all our lives at the Battle of Mt Olympus." She let sarcasm color her tone because obviously too many demigods had forgotten, but she was reminding them.

But it hadn't escaped her notice that Sadie and Carter seemed unusually familiar with Nico, and she remembered how Percy had spit his drink all over Nico when they'd arrived at dinner. That was something to remember and store for when she had time to try to figure that out again.

Annabeth decided that she'd talk with Thalia when she got the chance. Since Thalia had been with Nico and Sadie and Carter when they'd found the body, and she could tell that more had happened with all of them before Nico sensed Martina's spirit departing.

* * *

"We can't take Sadie and Carter away from here tonight. Everyone's going to be on full alert after this," Percy told Nico as soon as he got a chance to speak with him alone. That chance hadn't come until he was back in the Poseidon cabin.

Camp fire that night had been canceled, which was probably a good thing. The mood was too grim and tensions were too high. Many campers were still suspicious of the Hunters. The murder weapon had been an arrow, after all, and just because it wasn't shot didn't mean that a Hunter couldn't be the killer. Doubly so since it was an Aphrodite girl who'd been murdered. Then there were still a bunch of morons out there who thought that Nico was the killer just because he was a death god's son. Percy didn't want to mention it, but he knew that Nico was well aware that he was being watched with suspicion because of this, never mind that he had three witnesses to prove that he hadn't had anything to do with Martina's death.

"I know," said Nico. "I already spoke with them about that. We're going to try to get them out again tomorrow morning."

Percy looked at Nico worriedly. "But you can't shadow travel during the day."

"I'm going to take them to the edge of the peninsula," said Nico. "They're going to try to summon their boat. They've never done it on the ocean before but hopefully it'll work. If not . . ."

"We'll just have to think of something else."

Nico nodded and shivered.

"What happened to your jacket?" asked Percy. He'd noticed that it had suddenly developed quite a few holes in a very short amount of time.

"Thalia pinned me to a tree," said Nico, sounding very irritated.

Percy knew it wasn't appropriate, but he couldn't help but laugh at that. "She what?"

"She pinned me to a tree. Sadie had to cut me free because the arrows were in the tree too deep to pull out. Thankfully she and Carter have a spell that can fix it or else I'd be really mad." Nico took on a sulky look.

"You know," said Percy cautiously, "I don't want to offend you or anything, but that jacket really doesn't fit you very well. You might be warmer in a smaller one because loose clothes don't conserve body heat very well."

"I know," said Nico, "but I've had this jacket as long as I can remember. I don't want to give up any links to my past."

"Oh." Now Percy felt like a jerk. "Sorry. I didn't know."

"Don't be sorry. It's not like you told me to throw it out, like Thalia practically did."

Percy went to his bag and pulled out a dark blue sweatshirt. He tossed it to Nico. "Put this on under your jacket, at least. It'll keep you warm."

Nico stared at the sweatshirt with something like revulsion.

"It's clean," said Percy defensively.

"It's _blue_," said Nico as though that was a dirty word.

"There's nothing wrong with blue things," said Percy. "Why don't you ever wear colors?"

"Why should I?" demanded Nico.

"Maybe so people would stop thinking you're so emo," said Thalia from the door.

Percy groaned as Thalia and Annabeth invited themselves in.

"Hi boys," said Annabeth. "I hope we're not interrupting anything."

"I was bitching about how you killed my jacket," said Nico. He glared at Thalia. "Thank you so much for that, by the way."

"I said I was sorry," said Thalia.

"You apologized to me, but not my jacket," said Nico sulkily.

"You want me to apologize to your jacket?"

"Just put on the sweatshirt, Nico," said Percy. "Otherwise you're going to catch a cold."

Nico grumbled but did as Percy requested, then buttoned his aviator jacket up all the way so that it mostly hid the blue shirt.

"We need to talk," said Thalia, crossing her arms as Nico finished.

"I thought we already did talk," said Nico.

"You two are up to something," accused Annabeth. "I want to know why my boyfriend is keeping secrets from me. And how do you two know Sadie and Carter? Why haven't you made them come to camp before now?"

"The same reason we haven't made you leave," said Nico. "Because it's kind of hard to make people do things they don't want to!"

"Why did you spit your Coke all over Nico when you saw them, Percy?" demanded Annabeth. "I know you know them from before, somehow. Don't even bother denying that."

"I . . . uh . . ." Percy looked at Nico for help. Lying to Annabeth was so hard, and he knew he was going to mess it up if he tried. Plus he didn't want to lie to Annabeth. He didn't like lying to begin with but Annabeth was his girlfriend. He never wanted to be anything but honest to her.

"We have met them before," said Nico. "And we have told them about Camp Half-Blood. But they've never wanted to come, and like I said, it's hard to make people do things that they don't want to do. Or do you think it would have been a good idea to smash them in the head with a brick and drag them here unconscious?" Percy was impressed. Everything Nico had just said was true, though he wisely omitted the reason why they never wanted to come to Camp Half-Blood. Percy didn't think it was a good idea to tell Annabeth and Thalia that Sadie and Carter were magicians either. Magicians weren't exactly welcomed there.

"And you wonder why people think you're morbid," muttered Thalia.

"So are you up to something with them?" Annabeth wanted to know. "Tell me you didn't have anything to do with Martina's death."

"Of course we didn't!" Percy and Nico both exclaimed in unison. "How could you even think that?" asked Percy.

"Because you're both acting strange and it's got me worried. It's got Bianca worried. It's even got Thalia worried," said Annabeth.

"I'm not going to tell them that! That'll just make them made!" said Nico suddenly. Then his eyes widened. "Oops. I mean . . . nothing. Nevermind."

"Tell us what?" demanded Thalia.

Percy wanted to groan. Nico was obviously holding a conversation with Anubis in his head and was having a hard time keeping both conversations straight.

"Nothing," said Nico petulantly.

"What were you thinking of telling us?" asked Annabeth.

"That Thalia's put on weight since becoming a Hunter."

"Why you little . . ." Thalia made a move as though she was about to go after Nico. Nico stood his ground and Thalia drew back before actually attacking him.

"I told you it would make you mad," said Nico. "But then I thought there was a chance that it might not since the only people Hunters care about are other Hunters. What would it matter what I say? I'm just a stupid, lowly boy after all."

"Stop trying to change the subject, Nico," said Annabeth.

"You can say that again," said Nico.

"What?"

"Huh? Oops! I mean, nothing."

"Nico," said Percy. He suddenly felt very weary.

"Sorry," said Nico, looking tired as well.

Percy saw Annabeth looking back and forth between the two of them. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion, the way they did when something she didn't like occurred to her.

"Nico," she said, "Thalia told me what you told her earlier tonight . . . those times when you forget what you're talking about in the middle of a conversation and your memory goes blank for a moment. She said you thought it might be a side effect from the River Lethe, but that doesn't sound like anything I've ever heard before."

"Because you know so many people who have been dunked in that river and lived to tell about it?" asked Nico.

"After watching you and listening to you say odd, random things myself, I don't think it sounds like you're forgetting things," said Annabeth. "It sounds more like you're talking to someone else and are getting the conversations that you're carrying on confused."

_Oh gods, _thought Percy. _Annabeth's figured it out. She knows. This is bad._

He saw Nico's eyes widen in alarm and knew that Nico had come to the same conclusion. Percy wondered if it would be better for them if they came clean now or tried to deny that Nico was hosting an Egyptian god. If they denied it, precedence would be on their side since no Egyptian god had ever managed to take a demigod host before, and it was supposed to be impossible.

"You both need to be honest with me now," said Annabeth. "Because if my suspicions are correct, Nico needs some serious help." Annabeth took a deep breath.

Nico cringed and Percy felt himself tensing as well as they waited for the other shoe to fall.

"Nico," said Annabeth, "you've developed a multiple personality disorder, haven't you?"

_"What?"_ demanded Nico. "You're accusing me of having split personalities? Are you _stupid?"_

"Don't act so defensive," said Annabeth. "I'm trying to help you, Nico. You might be developing schizophrenia."

"I'm not."

"Nico, Children of the Underworld are prone to . . . well . . . insanity," said Thalia. "It's in all the lore I've ever read about you guys. Your magic wears down on your mind as you age. The older you get, the more you start to lose it."

"My father told me that's a myth," said Nico. "I asked. He told me that all of my predecessors were off from the moment they were born, and that they pulled the wings off flies and tortured rats and stuff. He said Bianca and I never did that. That we were different. Probably because our mother had a stronger life force than any of the other women he got the stork to deliver his children to."

_"What?"_ demanded all three of the older demigods at once.

Nico looked at them confused. "Huh?"

"Nico . . ." Percy glanced at Annabeth and Thalia who looked floored. "What are you talking about when you say he got a stork to visit them?"

Nico looked at them as though the answer was obvious. "The same way your godly parents got you delivered to your human parents. By asking a stork for a baby."

"Umm . . ." Percy wasn't sure if this was what Nico really thought . . . or if this was an ingenious plan to derail this conversation. If it was the latter then it really was a good idea . . . but Percy had the sinking feeling that it was the former.

"Oh gods," muttered Annabeth. "Don't tell me no one's explained to him about . . . gods, this is not . . ."

"What?" asked Nico, looking dumbfounded. "What did I say? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Well Nico," said Thalia. "Percy will tell you all about it."

"Wait, I will?"

"After Annabeth and I leave for the night."

"Thalia, you did not just volunteer me to give him the talk." Percy gritted his teeth together. He could not believe the turn that this conversation had taken.

"What talk?" Nico wanted to know. "And you guys say that I don't make any sense?"

"So if Hades lied to Nico about the stork, do you think he lied to him about his other half-siblings?" asked Thalia.

"Seems likely," said Annabeth. "I couldn't say for sure though."

"What do you mean he lied to me?" demanded Nico. "How can you know if he was lying or not? You think just because he's the Lord of the Dead that he must be a bad guy? Someone has to watch over all those departed souls! Do you know what would happen without someone there to regulate them all? And it's true that my other siblings who I never met were a little unhinged, but Father admitted that! He said that people just thought they got worse when they got older because they had the power to do things on bigger scales when they were older, but they'd been messed up from the start. And he said that Bianca and I were different, and that he'd had high hopes for us and I believed him! I still believe him! I'm not a psycho! I'm not!"

"I know you're not," said Percy quickly, because he could see that there was real fear and desperation starting to show in Nico's eyes. "I believe him too. And Annabeth, Thalia, trust me, Nico doesn't have split personalities. We hang out enough that I definitely would have noticed that."

"You could have noticed but just be covering for him," said Annabeth.

"I could be, but that wouldn't be helping him, would it?" returned Percy. "I do my best to look out for him and if I thought he was sick in any way, I'd make him go see a doctor."

Annabeth seemed to think that over then realized it was true. "So then tell me what's really going on."

"We already did," said Nico. "Why do you keep on hounding us?"

"Because we still think you're hiding something."

"Well good luck proving it." Nico started toward the door. "I'm going to bed."

Thalia blocked the door. "Not so fast."

"You're not really going to try to stop me, are you?" asked Nico. "If you do, this will get ugly."

"Don't," said Percy. He quickly moved to intervene. "Thalia, Nico, no fighting. That's the last thing the camp needs right now with what just happened. I mean it, don't."

Nico and Thalia both glared at each other and continued to size each other up for several seconds before letting their tensed muscles relax, if only minutely.

"I would like to go to bed," said Nico in a voice that was strained. "I'm tired. My head hurts. Please move, Thalia. If we have to continue this argument can we at least do it tomorrow? Tonight has not been a good night."

Thalia nodded and moved to the side. She actually reached out and patted Nico's shoulder as he walked by, which made Nico go rigid and look at her with huge eyes that were both shocked and disturbed. Then he turned back around and hurried out of the Poseidon cabin.

"This isn't over," Annabeth told Percy.

"Guys," said Percy. He felt as exhausted as Nico had looked. "You've got the wrong ideas about what's going on."

"We'll talk about it tomorrow," said Thalia when Annabeth would have started arguing again. "That boy was right about one thing. We're all too tired for this. Good night, Percy."

"I'll walk you guys back to your cabins," said Percy. He went to follow them but was stopped by their glares.

"We don't need protection just because we're girls," said Thalia looking irate.

"Okay, you're right, sorry," said Percy because if he didn't backtrack real quick he knew there would be blood. "Good night, Thalia. Good night, Annabeth." He moved to kiss his girlfriend, but Annabeth stepped away and gave him a dark look.

As they left Percy sighed. No one said that being a loyal friend was easy.

* * *

AN: Yay! It's finished. I wasn't sure if I'd get it done before I had to go to bed, but I did! I think I can get the next chapter up by the weekend, but tomorrow I have to work on the homework that I decided wasn't a priority tonight, lol. And sorry to the reviewers who wanted a different kind of interaction between Nico and Thalia, but by my way of thinking, they barely know each other. They met once in Titan's Curse, then once more in the Demigod Files short story "The Sword of Hades," so even though they're cousins and fought on the same side in the war, they really don't know each other. In my portrayal of Nico, he doesn't dislike her but he doesn't like anyone interfering in his personal business. He'll probably warm up to her more later, then he, Percy, and Thalia can have nice, peaceable family reunions . . . or not, lol.

And I'm very happy that those of you who tried out the books I recommended are liking them so far! : ) Isn't Abdiel awesome?


	7. Chapter 7

7

Carter was awakened very early the next morning when an icy cold hand was pressed against his mouth, muffling any exclamations he might have uttered upon waking. He blinked into darkness that seemed to be thickest just above him. That was what tipped him off, and even before Nico whispered in his ear, he guessed whose icy hand was covering his mouth.

"It's time to go, Carter," said Nico very softly.

Carter nodded and Nico removed his hand from Carter's mouth and grabbed his hand to pull him up. Sadie, Carter saw, was already hovering near the door. Around them, the sons and daughters of Hermes slept, as well as the two unclaimed girls who'd come in with Carter and Sadie the night before, Piper and Maya.

Carter followed when Nico led him and Sadie out into the gray of the pre-dawn morning.

"Stay close," whispered Nico. The shadows around the three of them began to grow darker and thicker. Not like they did when Nico shadow-traveled them and it felt like they'd been dropped into a black hole, but more like a veil of camouflage had been raised around them. "We have to hurry," said Nico as he began moving toward the woods. "My powers are weaker during the day."

"That sucks," said Sadie. "So does this camp, for the record. Making us sleep on the floor? What was up with that?"

"We provide better hospitality than the House of Life," pointed out Nico.

"What kind of welcome would we have gotten if they'd known who we really were?" asked Sadie.

"Well they wouldn't have put you in a cell," said Nico.

"Do you like it here?" asked Carter.

"Why? What's it to you?" Nico wanted to know.

"Well . . . it seems like most people don't treat you very well because of who your father is, but . . . the ones who aren't jerks treat you like a hero because of how you saved all their lives," said Carter.

Nico pulled a face.

"You never mentioned that," said Sadie. "Neither you nor Percy told us any of the good stories. Guess what we had the Hermes kids telling us about until lights out?"

Nico turned to scowl at the, then answered Carter's original question. "I like it here well enough, I guess. It's better than most of the places I've lived for any amount of time, but when Percy's not around I think I prefer being with you guys."

"Well next time the three of us are home, you're telling us all about the Battle of Mt. Olympus," said Sadie.

"And the Battle of the Labyrinth," said Carter. He'd been more interested in that one since his father had actually done research on the labyrinth at one time.

"Okay. Now be quiet," hissed Nico. "People may not be able to see us but they can still hear us."

Nico led them through the woods, away from the camp, until the forest gave way to the ocean, with a stretch of rugged beach between the two. "We're here," said Nico. "And none too soon."

At that very moment the top of the sun crested above the ocean in the distance, spilling golden light over them. The shadow veil that Nico had thrown up dissolved abruptly, leaving all three of them exposed, but thankfully, they were alone on the beach.

"Alright," said Carter. He walked toward the ocean quickly. "Let's get out of here."

The water was freezing, as Carter had known it would be. He took off his shoes, tied the laces together, and hung them around his neck then rolled up his pants legs before entering. Somehow he doubted that hypothermia was conducive to good spell-casting. He walked out onto the surf until it came up to his knees then, shivering, he glanced back at Sadie and Nico. Or rather just at Sadie, since Nico's magic wasn't advanced far enough for him to summon a boat, and even if it was, he wasn't leaving with them. But Sadie stood just out of the water's reach, looking smug.

"I'll let you handle the summoning," she told her brother.

"Brat," muttered Carter. His teeth chattered and he decided that rather than argue it would be easier just to summon the boat on his own. He reached into his reserves of magic and formed the hieroglyphics that he needed with his mind. Then he focused on pulling the boat to him, out of the ether or Duat or wherever it was when it wasn't in use, but almost immediately he realized that it wasn't going to work. The magic just didn't feel right.

Carter staggered and fell to his knees as the magic broke away from him. He got a mouthful of salt water before he felt himself being hauled up by both arms. Sadie was pulling him up on his right, and Nico on his left, and neither of them had taken the time to shed their shoes or roll up their pants before plunging in after him.

"W-w-w-what's w-w-w-wrong-g-g?" demanded Nico, but his teeth were chattering so badly that it was almost impossible to make out what he was trying to say. "Is-s-s-s it-t-t n-n-n-not work-k-k-king?"

Carter shook his head. "I don't know if it's because we can't call the boat in the ocean, or if it's because the camp's protections are blocking me, even here, but it's not working."

"Well isn't that peachy?" asked Sadie. "Can we get out of the bloody water then?"

"P-p-p-please!" agreed Nico.

"What in Hades are you three doing?" asked Annabeth, suddenly on the beach behind them right when they turned around.

"W-w-w-wah!" yowled Nico in surprise. "An-n-n-nab-b-beth! W-what-t-t-t are y-y-y-"

"Shut up, Nico. I asked you first," said Annabeth.

"Isn't it obvious?" asked Sadie as she trudged on up out of the surf. "We're practicing for a polar-bear swim. Why don't you join us?"

"You followed us?" asked Carter. He had to make an effort to keep from stuttering himself.

"Yes, I followed you. The Hunters have been keeping an eye on your cabin all night at my request. When they heard you leave, they got me and I came to find out what's going on," said Annabeth. "I want to know what you've gotten my boyfriend involved in because he's not talking."

"That's kind of because he's not involved," said Sadie.

"I don't believe you."

"I c-c-c-can't-t-t f-feel m-m-my f-f-feet-t-t-t!" cried Nico dropping to the ground and peeling off his boots and socks. "G-g-g-g-god-d-d-s-s-s!"

"You alright there, Death Boy?" asked Sadie.

"Sh-sh-shut-t-t-t –"

"Well excuse me for being concerned. Let's just hope we don't have to get someone to give you a piggy-back ride this time."

"You all met before you two came to camp, didn't you?" asked Annabeth. "How? And how did Percy get involved?"

"What, they're not allowed to have friends outside of camp?" asked Sadie.

"Sadie," said Carter. He wanted to diffuse the situation but didn't know how. "Look . . . Annabeth, isn't it? I'm sorry but . . . I think you've got the wrong idea about all this."

"Then set me straight." Annabeth crossed her arms and glared at him.

"Well . . ." Carter's voice was barely audible over the sound of Nico's chattering teeth. "There is a good explanation for everything . . . We just . . ."

"We should have this conversation later," said Sadie. "Now that our polar-bear swim practice is over we should dry off and warm up so that we don't get hypothermia. Nico's turning blue, in case you haven't noticed."

"Am n-n-not-t-t-t!"

Annabeth looked annoyed and Carter guessed this wasn't the first time she'd tried to get answers and been delayed. But she nodded. "Let's go. We have time for a nice long talk before breakfast."

"Oh n-n-n-n-no," chattered Nico, his face twisted oddly.

"Oh yes," said Annabeth. "You're not getting out of it this time, Corpse Breath."

"Don't call him that," said Sadie, immediately defensive.

"N-n-no. G-g-guys-s-s-s-"

"She has no right to talk to you that way," said Sadie angrily. "You shouldn't put up with that."

"You shouldn't have to," agreed Carter. He looked at Annabeth and tried to stand straighter. "You should apologize to him."

"G-g-g-guys!" yelped Nico. "Th-th-that's n-n-not-"

"It is important," said Sadie. "Don't say that it's not."

"L-l-l-listen!"

"If you two are in good enough shape to talk clearly then there's no reason we can't have this conversation right here," said Annabeth threateningly.

"S-someone j-just d-d-died!" shouted Nico. He clenched his fists to keep them from shaking. The cold water was obviously affecting him worse than it had Carter or Sadie. Carter wondered if their magic somehow protected them . . . or if being affected by the cold was another throw-back to Nico's powers. Being the son of a death god seemed to make it so that he had about as much body-heat as the average corpse.

"What do you mean someone just died?" demanded Annabeth, stepping forward so she was right in front of him. She looked like she was going to try pulling him off the ground by his collar and shaking him, but Sadie moved to stand between them.

"What do you think he meant?" shouted Sadie. "How many ways can you really interpret a statement like that?"

Carter knelt beside Nico who was rubbing his feet, trying to get blood circulation in them going again. "Someone was murdered again?" asked Carter. "Like last night?"

Nico nodded.

"You felt their soul leave, you mean?"

Another nod.

"Were they confused like Martina was? The kind of confusion that comes from suddenly being dead and not knowing why?"

"Y-y-y-"

"Yes, then," said Carter so Nico wouldn't have to. He glanced at Annabeth. "Should we go find the body? Or should we get someone else?"

"We should go," said Annabeth. "And Nico, this better not be a trick."

"Y-you th-th-think that-t-t of m-me?" asked Nico looking hurt.

Annabeth's face softened at that question. "No," she admitted. "I don't. I'm just frustrated, in large part because of you, and now that this has been sprung on me . . . I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

"Can you stand?" asked Carter. He hoped that he wouldn't have to carry Nico. He remembered having to carry Nico through Central Park when they'd first met, after Nico had gotten knocked out fighting to help them. Something about Nico's aura seemed to drain the life out of anyone who touched him. Carter wondered for a second if maybe that was how the rumor that Nico had a death touch had started, but quickly realized it probably was not the case. Most people at camp hadn't seemed to want to get too close to him, and the ones who did had all refuted the death touch rumors.

Nico nodded and tried to get up. Carter grabbed one of his arms to help him. Sadie grabbed the other.

"You're going to walk barefooted?" asked Carter.

Nico nodded.

"Wet boots and socks won't help him get warm again," said Sadie. "You carry those for him, Carter. I'll give Nico a hand."

That was a surprisingly considerate thing for Sadie to offer. Carter watched her pull Nico close to her so that he could lean on her while walking and wondered, not for the first time, just what Sadie really thought about their demigodling friend.

"Th-this w-w-way," said Nico.

"Do you know who it was?" asked Annabeth, moving to walk ahead of them.

"N-n-no."

* * *

This time the murder victim was one of the Hunters of Artemis. Nico groaned as they came to a stop before the body, then scowled as Annabeth went to check the dead girl's pulse, as though Nico might somehow be wrong about her being dead.

While Annabeth tried to find a heart-beat, Nico determined cause of death. It wasn't hard. Dark marks against the pale skin of her throat gave it away. Someone had come up from behind her, wrapped a cord around her neck, and jerked down. That was a mistake on the killer's part, and one that had made death painful for whatever this Hunter's name was. If they'd pulled the cords upward it would have cut off blood-flow to her brain, and she'd have lost consciousness faster, died easier. Pulling down had made everything more difficult. Nico could see where the string had dug into the girl's skin, where she'd clawed at her own neck trying to get her fingers beneath it, and where blood vessels beneath her skin had burst.

Nico struggled to get a couple coins out of his pocket. The girl's eyes were already closed, but he wanted to weigh them down with the drachmas to make sure they wouldn't pop open. The whites of her eyes, he knew, would be stained red. The blood vessels in them would all have burst, and it would not be pretty.

But his hands were shaking too badly, and he ended up spilling change all over the ground. Sadie quickly retrieved it for him, then placed two of the coins on the girl's eyelids herself before returning the rest of the money to Nico.

"I don't know her name," she said. "Or the words that I'm supposed to say. Sorry."

"It-t-t-t's f-fine," chattered Nico.

"It's actually not," said Annabeth. "Thalia is not going to be happy about this at all."

_No one's going to be happy,_ thought Nico.

_Another murder?_ asked Anubis, his consciousness stirring. _This is bad. You and the Kanes should get out of here as quickly as you can._

_ If we go running off it's going to look suspicious and they might well send someone to track us down_, said Nico to him. _This is the second time the three of us have found a body together. Even though we're not involved in any way, people are going to start to wonder._

_ I don't suppose you have any idea who is doing this?_

_ Don't pretend you haven't been searching my thoughts looking to see what I thought about that, _huffed Nico_. You know I don't know._

_True, _said Anubis ruefully_. Then he added, I didn't think you'd feel me searching those thoughts. I was trying to be discreet._

_ I didn't feel you searching them. I just knew that you would. I'm starting to get to know you pretty well. _ Nico would have smiled but his lips were kind of frozen in place.

_Your temperature is dropping too low. You should dry off and warm up._

_ Yeah . . ._

"Nico looks like he's about to turn into a corpsicle," said Sadie before Nico could make a request to leave. "We should take him back."

Annabeth looked at them, then at Carter and looked like she was sizing the Kane siblings up. "You take him back, Carter. Sadie, you stay with me."

"Wait, why are you sending Carter back with him?" demanded Sadie. "Is it because you think Carter is more capable of defending them if someone tries to jump them? Because let me tell you, just because he's a boy doesn't mean he's the better fighter!"

"Do you want to take him back then?" asked Annabeth.

"As a matter of fact, I do!"

"Then take him. Carter, you stay here with me. But from now on no one's going to be allowed to go anywhere alone."

Sadie was quiet on the walk back. Nico didn't have much to say and couldn't have said it without stuttering from the cold, so he kept quiet too. It wasn't until they reached the lane with all the cabins that they traded any words.

"So which cabin is Percy's?" asked Sadie. "Let me guess . . . The one with the trident symbol?"

Nico nodded. "M-m-mine's the one w-with the g-green fire –"

"That's nice, but we're not going to your cabin."

"Wh-what?"

"I'm no bloody candy-striper, Death Boy. The care and keeping of Nico is being turned over to your cousin. Besides, he's more likely to have stuff like towels and extra socks than you are."

Nico would have grumbled if he could have done it without his teeth chattering.

Percy woke up when Nico stumbled in and took a header toward the floor.

"What's going on?" he demanded, immediately alert. "Nico? Sadie? What happened? Where's Carter?"

"Carter's with Annabeth," said Sadie. "Death Boy here found us another body."

Percy paled. "Who?"

"A H-h-hunter," Nico told him.

"Was there a fight? Were any of you injured?"

"No," said Sadie. "Annabeth, and most likely the dead Hunter too, followed us when we tried to leave. We tried to summon the boat on the ocean but couldn't. Nico's shivering because Carter fell down in the water and we had to haul him out. But beings as he has about as much body heat as a corpse, he's not handling it so well."

"B-b-b-bite m-me!" said Nico.

Percy sighed and found a couple towels from somewhere. "Dry off," he said, tossing one to Sadie then one to Nico. "Both of you stay here. I need to go tell Chiron."

"Should you be going out alone?" asked Sadie as Percy went to leave. "I know you're a badass hero and all, but two demigods have been blind-sided now, and –"

"I'll be fine," promised Percy. "You of all people should have noticed how hard it is to hurt me."

Knowing that his cousin was remembering the incident in which Sadie had accidentally hit Percy in the head with a metal rod with all her might, Nico laughed, but the chattering of his teeth made it sound kind of like what he thought a skeleton laughing would sound like.

"Uh, yeah," said Sadie. "I actually heard some rumors about why you're so hard to hurt. And why you went to such great pains to get that way. Both you and Nico have been holding out on us."

"We can talk about that later," said Percy with a rueful smile. "Close the door after I'm gone. If you have to leave then both of you go out together."

"Yes, mom," said Sadie.

"This is serious," said Percy, frowning now.

"W-we know," Nico told him. "We'll b-be c-c-careful. But you be c-careful to. D-don't g-g-get c-careless."

"I won't," promised Percy. "We can't exactly afford it now, can we?"

Nico shook his head. "S-s-so much for hoping f-for a w-week without-t-t any em-m-mergencies."

* * *

AN: Thank you everyone who reviewed for all your feedback! Reviews make me happy : ) And to answer a couple questions, the boy who Brendan Noonan sent to the Hephaestus table when the new demigods and the Kanes arrived was supposed to be Leo. Jason won't be showing up in this story, but I have some ideas for the future. Nico, Anubis and the Kanes vs. some Rogue House of Life Freaks vs. The Roman Camp. Battle Royale anyone? lol B/c the House of Life definitely seemed anti-Rome and blamed their gods for letting them fall to Rome, but I'm thinking some of them might be willing to break away from the main organization and become hosts to beat down on the Romans if they have the chance.


	8. Chapter 8

8

"So . . ." said Sadie once she and Nico had been sitting in silence for awhile. And by silence that means Nico's teeth had stopped chattering.

"Hmm?" asked Nico. He sat with his feet curled under him, probably to try to keep warm. His jacket was still in tatters, and Sadie noticed that he was still wearing Percy's blue sweat shirt beneath it.

"He's been gone awhile, hasn't he?"

"He probably went to the woods with Chiron," said Nico. He didn't seem overly concerned.

"So is it true?" asked Sadie.

"Is what true?"

"That Percy is like Achilles?" she asked. "That the only way you can hurt him is if you cut him in the heel?"

Nico paused and Sadie got the feeling that he was deciding whether or not to tell her the truth. "Yes," he said at last. "He's almost invincible. That's why he was able to shrug it off so easily when you hit him in the head last month."

Sadie laughed but her heart wasn't in it. "Hey Nico?"

"Hmm?" said Nico again.

"Who do you think it is?"

She watched as Nico's face fell and felt a little bit bad about asking, but she didn't think that Nico hadn't been considering that question already.

"I don't know," said Nico. "I should have some kind of idea, I know, but I don't. None of the campers have anything to gain doing this. Nothing that I can think of anyway. The Hunters don't either. I don't like them but I don't think they'd ever kill one of their own unless she betrayed them all. The only reason I can think of that anyone would do something like this is to cause trouble between the campers and the Hunters, and maybe start a feud between us but . . . but I can't think of who that would benefit."

"Do you think . . . that the House of Life could be behind this?" asked Sadie.

Nico shook his head. "I don't think they could get past the camp's borders."

"Carter and I got past them."

"You had an invitation," said Nico. "Or an implied invitation. Getting invited into a chariot by demigods, that is then driven into camp by demigods makes it pretty clear that you're welcome here. Just like putting a god in your head then walking across the borders lets the god be here too."

"It could be them. It's not impossible," said Sadie. "They'd certainly benefit from conflict between you and the Hunters."

"Only if they were planning on starting something," argued Nico. "And considering how much trouble they went to in order to avoid starting a war last month, I don't think they'd be charging back toward war this month."

That was true, Sadie had to admit.

"But . . ." Nico looked troubled. "If someone was doing this without any real reasons . . . I mean if they had their own reasons, but their reasons were illogical . . . Then it might be someone from the House of Life."

"You're thinking of Aziza," guessed Sadie, and she could see by the way Nico visibly went paler that she had guessed right. "You think she's behind this."

"I never said that."

"But you were thinking it," pressed Sadie.  
"I was trying not to think it actually," said Nico, sounding like he was trying to use a dry tone, but his voice caught and he looked more scared than anything else.

Sadie didn't blame him. Not after what Aziza had put him through. In their first meeting Aziza had pretty much killed Nico. His soul had been sent to the Egyptian Halls of Judgment, which was where the whole mess with getting his soul fused with Anubis' had started. He'd been in a coma for four days because of her. At their next meeting she'd tried to burn him alive. Then when she finally did succeed in capturing him she'd tortured him. She'd put a collar around his neck with a healing spell on it that negated the energy that kept him alive, or as alive as any child of the underworld whose powers were as developed as Nico's could be. And when that energy was being destroyed he'd been in too much pain to even move. Sadie still remembered the defeated look on his face and the agony in his eyes as he just lay there, waiting for his life to completely drain away.

She'd actually had a couple dreams where she'd been back in that cell, but in her dreams her plan for getting the collar off Nico didn't work. She dreamed that she had to just sit there and watch him die, and when she woke up the emptiness of his eyes continued to haunt her.

"But if Aziza's here we need to think about it," said Sadie. "We have to consider that she might be involved."

"How would she have gotten into camp?" asked Nico.

"Someone could have invited her in. Stranger things have happened."

"But if she was here she'd be coming after me," said Nico. Something painful flickered in his eyes. "She wouldn't go and just kill two random girls, or if she did she'd leave something for me to find, some kind of sign so I'd know it was her. She'd want me being tormented about it . . . about her."

Sadie nodded. Nico had a point. And honestly she hoped he was right. She didn't feel like running into Aziza the sadistic bitch anytime soon.

"So what then?" she asked. "Who does that leave?"

Nico shrugged. "Someone else whose reasons aren't reasonable? A demigod serial killer? Or a demigod who's cracked? I don't know. But . . ."

"But what?"

Nico buried his face in his hands looking exhausted. "I feel like I'm missing something. Like there's something I should be seeing that will point me in the right direction. But I can't figure out what."

* * *

Breakfast was a fun affair with lots of screaming and shouting, and arguing. At first Chiron tried to get everyone to hold off on the discussion of what was going on until after breakfast, where they'd take the meeting to the arena, but that proved impossible. Mainly because Thalia was not willing to agree to that. One of her Hunters had been killed and no one had any idea who did it.

What she did know was that Karena, the Hunter who'd been killed, had been assigned to keep an eye on Nico from 4 am until breakfast, and that Karena had been killed while following him. And according to Annabeth Sadie and Carter had been with him while Karena was murdered.

"We want to know what you and the two new demigods were doing," said Thalia, loud enough for everyone to hear. "One of our sisters was killed following you. We have a right to know why."

Nico looked at her irritably. He still wore his aviator jacket even though it would have been of better use in a scrap pile. "We were just going for a walk," he said. "I thought I'd show them the beach."

"Why?" demanded Thalia, even though she didn't buy it. She couldn't prove that he was lying unless maybe she could catch him in a lie.

"Because they like the beach!" said Nico.

"How do you even know that? And why sneak out with them right before dawn?"

"Because dawn is the best time to see sunrises," spoke up Sadie. "Nico doesn't really care for them, but I for one love them."

"How do you three even know each other?" Annabeth wanted to know.

"I already told you," shouted Nico. "We met outside of camp. They never wanted to come to camp before and they were doing fine on their own, so I didn't try to pressure them to come."

"Why keep it a secret that you knew them then?" asked Annabeth.

Nico lowered his gaze to the ground and muttered something.

"Speak up," ordered Thalia.

"I said I wasn't sure if they'd want to be my friends at camp!" yelled Nico. "Not after they found out what so many of you idiots think of me!"

That made Thalia feel guilty. She actually almost considered backing down, but she had her duty as the lieutenant of Artemis.

"We were probably right to think that way about you, you know," said a girl whose name Thalia had learned was Drew over at the Aphrodite table. "Do you think anyone believes it was a coincidence that you found both bodies, Corpse Breath?"

"What do you mean by that?" demanded Nico.

"That's going too far," Percy spoke up over Nico. "We all know Nico can pinpoint corpses. And reanimate them to fight for him. And even call them out from the Underworld if there aren't any around for him to bring to life. So yeah, it's no coincidence that he found them because him having that power kind of comes with being the son of Hades."

"You know on TV they say that the person who finds the body is usually the one who killed them," said Drew sweetly.

"Do you want me to come over there and slap you again?" asked Sadie, standing up at the Hermes table.

Thalia watched as Carter tried to pull her back down. Those two had been keeping out of the spotlight, and Thalia was pretty sure that it was deliberate. That Nico and Percy were making sure people were watching them so that Sadie and Carter would avoid scrutiny. But was it because they didn't want their friends being ostracized at the camp? Or did they have other motives?

"We do not believe that Nico di Angelo is the murderer," said Thalia, speaking for all the Hunters. "Even if his sister had not been one of our sisters, and were he not my cousin. His actions at the Battle for Mount Olympus made it clear where his allegiances lie. And all that aside, he has had witnesses to give him an alibi when both murders occurred. I myself was with him when Martina was killed. Annabeth was with him when Karena was killed. It could not have been Nico. No matter how much some ungrateful lowlifes dislike him, trying to place blame on him when it obviously was not him is only going to help the real killer remain undetected."

"Thalia is right," spoke up Chiron. The centaur stepped forward to address all of the campers. "And an investigation will be conducted. I have already contacted several of our former campers who now have careers which will be of help to us in this matter: a daughter of Athena whose research has made great breakthroughs in criminal forensics, and a son of Dionysus who . . . writes very thrilling detective stories when he is inebriated."

This announcement was met with silence.

"Both of them should have arrived by this time tomorrow, but until then, no, until the culprit is caught, we will be enforcing stricter security measures," said Chiron. "From now on all campers are to remain with their entire cabin at all times. If measures arise which require one person to separate from their cabin, they must be accompanied by at least two other campers."

"Why two?" demanded Drew. "Isn't one enough to overpower the murderer?"

"Not if that one person you're with is the murderer, genius," Nico told her, earning himself a dirty look.

"At least I have people who'll willingly be with me," said Drew. "The only people you think are your friends don't want to be seen with you in broad daylight."

Percy was the first one to speak up in Nico's defense, though Thalia noticed Sadie looking like she was about to go on the warpath, and from the look on Carter's face, he wasn't going to stop her this time.

"Shut up, Drew," said Percy. "No one asked for your opinion. And Nico will be with me since neither of us have other cabin-mates. The two of us will be more than a match for anyone else here." He looked at Chiron to get this approved.

The centaur nodded. "That would probably be the wisest course of action."

"If Nico gets sick of Percy he can always come join Ares cabin," said Clarisse, speaking for her table. There were nods all around from the Ares kids.

Thalia felt as though she should have spoken up too right then, but she couldn't. Nico was a boy. Her Hunters wouldn't welcome him, even if he was Bianca's little brother. Of course, Thalia didn't think there was a chance in Hades he'd ever take the Hunters up on an invitation, so it wouldn't have hurt anything if she offered, but still . . . it was the principal of it all.

"Security measures aside, until our investigators arrive, activities will continue as normal," said Chiron. "With the exception of our Capture the Flag games. The Hunters, of course, are allowed to come and go as they please, or as Artemis dictates, however I think it is correct to say that they intend to stay until this is resolved?"

Thalia nodded. "We intend to make sure that whoever killed our sister pays with their life."

Chiron didn't look extremely pleased about that, but Thalia didn't know what else he had in mind for the murderer. Imprisonment? That would be risky where a demigod was concerned. Human prisons weren't that great at holding demigods, and Camp Half-Blood wasn't exactly outfitted with dungeons. Exile was probably what the centaur had in mind, but that was far too merciful in Thalia's opinion.

By chance she glanced at Nico and caught his eye. His expression was just as dark as hers, and Thalia remembered that the Aprhodite daughter who'd been killed had shown Nico kindness. Something that seemed to be a rare commodity for him in this camp. From the look in his eyes, she could tell that he too intended to take revenge.

Now it seemed they'd be competing in two things. Who would get to kill the murderer, and who would give up first as Thalia attempted to make him spill his secrets.

* * *

AN: Next chapter: Percy suggests to Nico that they should tell Thalia and Annabeth what's really going on, and Sadie gets in a fight when someone disses Nico.


	9. Chapter 9

9

Nico watched as the Kanes left with the Hermes cabin once breakfast was over. They would be safe with the Hermes cabin. Probably.

"So what now?" asked Percy as he sat down across from Nico. "This changes everything."

Nico nodded. Karena the Hunter's death was causing them quite a bit of inconvenience. He knew that he should have felt guilty about thinking of it like that, but he had a couple living people to worry about who he cared about a lot more than some Hunter he didn't even know. It was going to be a lot harder to get Sadie and Carter out of camp without causing some sort of fuss about it now.

"I don't know yet," said Nico. He sighed and closed his eyes. "How is it that everything I do gets so screwed up?"

"It's part of being a demigod," said Percy comfortingly.

"No other demigod here has lost their entire family, spent 60 years in a time warp, lost all their memories, been betrayed by everyone they ever trusted, with the exception of one cousin who they accidentally got imprisoned in the Underworld once, and got their soul fused to an Egyptian god's," said Nico.

"Well, lucky for you I got over that Underworld mishap," said Percy. "And you've also had some good things happen to you too. You've flown with Dedalus' wings. You saved the camp from being burned to the ground. And you turned the tide of the Battle of Mount Olympus. And you have a couple new friends now who I seriously doubt will betray you. Sadie hit Drew for you."

Nico nodded, feeling a bit better, and picked up his glass of orange juice to finish it off.

"I think she might have a crush on you."

"Mmph! Augh!" Nico choked. He nearly sprayed his juice all over Percy, which would have been good payback for the blue Coke incident from the day before, but he was too busy struggling to breath to take advantage.

"Hey! Calm down. Take it easy," said Percy, hitting him on the back.

_What's wrong?_ demanded Anubis. Nico felt the god raking through his thoughts. _? He thinks that Sadie likes you?_

_ He's a moron, _Nico told the god.

. . . Anubis said nothing, but somehow Nico felt like that silence was disapproving.

"She does not like me," said Nico when he was able to breath again.

Percy held up his hands in surrender. "I could be wrong."

"You are!"

"Okay," said Percy. "I was wrong. No need to drown yourself in orange juice because of it. Are you finished with breakfast?"

"Yes."

"Then come on." Percy cast a nervous look in the Athena cabin's table. "I can't come up with a plan while Annabeth is glaring at me like that."

Nico stood and followed Percy away from the pavilion.

_You should have spit your orange juice on him, _said Anubis darkly.

_I know,_ said Nico. _I missed my chance._

_ You could still go back for more orange juice._

_ We have other things to do,_ Nico reminded him. _And I'm trying not to hold grudges, remember? _

Wordless disapproval was the only response that Nico got to that before Anubis withdrew back into the shadows of his mind again.

"We should try to get them out of here before the investigators arrive," said Nico as he and Percy headed toward the weapons training area.

"You don't think it'll look like they're running because they're guilty?" asked Percy.

"It might. But if the investigators find out they're magicians, they might decide that they're guilty and that the investigation is over," pointed out Nico. "They'll realize they're wrong when someone else gets killed, but I don't want anything bad to happen to Sadie and Carter in the meantime. And I'd rather no one else have to die to prove them innocent."

"Good point."

"I'll take them somewhere that they can't be tracked," said Nico. "Australia maybe. That's far enough away."

"You'll be going with them?" asked Percy.

Nico shrugged. "I think I should. If any Greeks come after them before the killer's caught, I can protect them. I know what to expect from other demigods."

"And what do you want me to tell Chiron and everyone else?"

"That Sadie and Carter thought it was more dangerous here than out in the world, and decided to take their chances as loners again. And I went with them because . . . because I like them better than anyone else here at camp, except you. Just do your best to make sure they don't send anyone after us."

Percy nodded. "You do your best not to have anymore emergencies. I don't want to leave camp until they've caught the killer. If something happened to Annabeth –"

"It won't," said Nico. "You won't let it."

They'd reached the weapons practice court and Nico realized with wry amusement that both he and Percy had headed there without even seeming to realize where they were going or having to discuss it.

"I guess we can get a few practice bouts in before anyone else comes and starts gawking at us," said Percy.

Nico nodded and chose a practice sword since the Stygian iron blade he used was too dangerous for sparring. He didn't want to end up accidentally draining anyone's soul. Even if Percy was almost invincible, there was still one spot that if he was hit there, he would die and Nico didn't want to risk hitting it. Even though he had a pretty good idea where it was, because Percy was predictable like that. He tried not to think about it, because he knew that Anubis had access to all of his thoughts, but it was like trying not to think about elephants. But he didn't know for certain and preferred to keep it that way. He didn't want to betray his cousin again, even indeliberately.

"Hey Nico," said Percy as they squared off.

"Yeah?"

"When this mess with the murders is over . . . maybe you should consider telling Annabeth and Thalia the truth."

Nico glared at him. "Why in Dad's name would I do that?"

"Because it's a lot easier having those girls as allies than enemies," said Percy practically.

"And the more people who know about me, the more likely it is someone's going to try to kill me."

"They wouldn't –"

"Thalia answers to Artemis. She's a Hunter. Her loyalty is to them and she'd report what she knew about me in a heartbeat."

Percy paused, considering this. "Well Annabeth –"

"Maybe."

"What?" Percy looked taken aback. He'd obviously expected a bigger fight about this.

"I said maybe," Nico said grudgingly. He really didn't want to tell Annabeth, but if he did it would probably make things easier for Percy. He didn't want to be the cause of problems between Percy and his girlfriend. He owed his cousin that much at least.

"Oh. Well. Maybe is good," said Percy.

Nico gave him a nod and raised his sword into a ready position. Percy raised his own blade but before either boy could move the sound of shouting reached their ears right before a loud explosion made everything else sound muted in comparison.

"What the crap?" asked Nico.

Nico and Percy both turned toward the magic practice grounds and saw that a large group of campers were huddled together, all speaking and shouting in excitement.

"I don't like the sound of that," said Percy.

"Me neither," agreed Nico.

Without another word they took off at a run to find out what was going on.

* * *

Carter knew they were in trouble when Hermes cabin ended up at the rock wall with the Aphrodite Cabin. Not that the Aphrodite cabin was really climbing the wall. They were more just sitting around watching other people climb the wall, paying particular attention when the Hermes boys with more muscles scaled the rocks than anyone else.

Carter dragged Sadie to the side since this was their first chance to talk in private since that morning. "Does Nico have another plan for getting us out of here?"

"He mentioned trying again tonight," said Sadie. "He wants to shadow travel us away from here." She looked at the other Hermes campers, a thoughtful look on her face.

"What?" asked Carter.

"Hmm?"

"You look like you're thinking deep about something. You have any ideas on what we should be doing?"

"Uh, no, not really," said Sadie. "I'm all for getting out of here however Nico thinks is best. But you know . . ."

"What?"

"Have you ever thought that maybe we could use a few more like Nico and Percy?"

"Huh?" Now Carter was confused.

"Well, we're not doing so good on finding other magicians," said Sadie. "Except for the ones who want to kill us, who really aren't all that helpful. But Nico and Percy are more than a match for any of the enemies that we've made so far. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to recruit a few more demigods to our cause."

"Sadie," said Carter, "They don't like us. They hate magicians, remember? You've heard how they talk about us."

"Nico and Percy don't hate us because they know better."

"But that's them –"

"And demigods who don't have preconceived prejudices won't have anything against us either, I don't think," said Sadie. Carter followed her gaze toward the demigod girl they'd arrived at camp with, Piper, who was getting ready to climb the rock wall.

"I don't know, Sadie," he said.

"I don't think she likes it here much," said Sadie. "She hasn't been claimed yet so she's feeling left out. We could take her with us."

"For all we know she could be the murderer," said Carter.

Sadie shook her head. "Piper's cool. You're not going to make me believe otherwise without some proof."

"Okay," said Carter, "then look at it like this. Yesterday was the first murder. The first one, as in there hadn't been any others before that one. And whoever the killer is, he or she's on a spree. So either something happened yesterday that caused the killer to flip out and start murdering people . . . or the killer only just arrived here yesterday."

That made Sadie frown. "Yeah, well she's not the only one who just got here yesterday."

"Well of the five new people, there's us, her, Leo, and Maya. We know it wasn't either of us. Maya's barely four feet tall. So that leaves Leo and Piper."

"Then it's Leo," said Sadie. "Or one of those Hunters. Piper's cool."

"Because she stood up for Nico?" asked Carter dryly.

"Because she refuses to jump to conclusions about people who she doesn't know!" said Sadie. "She's a good person."

"Maybe she is, but can we really afford to take a chance?" asked Carter.

"Can we afford to go on as we are?" countered Sadie. "We _need_ allies, Carter. Right now it's just you, me, Bast, Percy, Nico, and Anubis against the freaking apocalypse snake. We're kind of screwed, in case you haven't noticed. We're going to need more back up."

Carter hated to admit it, but Sadie had a point. But still, chances were about 50/50 that Piper was their murderer. He didn't like those odds. "If we want more demigod allies, we should check with Nico and Percy and see who they recommend bringing in," he said. "I don't think your friend Piper has much combat experience."

"A week with us will change that," said Sadie.

"Besides," continued Carter, "right now it's more important for us to get out of here in one piece than it is to recruit more allies.

"I guess you're right," she muttered with a sigh. "But I like Piper. It's too bad we have to leave, or at least leave her here. I think we could have been friends."

Carter felt bad for his sister. He remembered that she had two close friends back at her home in England, both of them girls. Now she was kind of lacking in female companionship around her own age. Bast was a friend but she was also a guardian or chaperone to them, which meant that there would always be things they'd hold back from her. Carter had Nico and Percy as guy friends he could hang out with. Sadie had them too, but Carter didn't think it was the same for her since they were guys and her best friends had always been girls.

"I'm sorry," he told her. He would have said more, but out the corner of his eye, he saw something go sailing through the air, from the direction that the Aphrodite cabin was sitting. Whoever threw it had good aim, because it went quite high, right up to where Piper was climbing and hit the rocks just above her, then it burst in a shower of powder. Piper yelped and started coughing and lost her grip on the rocks.

What Carter did next was stupid, he knew, but he reacted on instinct. He saw someone in trouble and he tried to help them, as was his nature. But thankfully everyone's attention was focused elsewhere as he pointed at Piper and sent his power at her as she fell into freefall since, apparently safety equipment was for humans rather than demigods, and the Hermes kids had sent her up the rock wall without a harness. Without thinking about what he was doing, Carter turned Piper into a fruit bat.

"Carter!" hissed Sadie, looking like she wasn't sure whether she wanted to hug him or hit him.

Fruit Bat Piper began flapping her wings, catching the air, and slowing her descent, as everyone else began shrieking or yelling, or screaming in surprise. Piper landed, none too gracefully, but at least not painfully, and while everyone's attention remained on her, Carter pointed at her again and turned her back to human.

Everyone continued talking over each other.

"What in Hades was that?"

"Did you see?"

"The new girl turned into a bat!"

"What is she? A vampire?"

"If she's a vampire does that make her the murderer?"

Sadie and Carter exchanged panicked glances. That was not how they wanted peoples' trains of thoughts to go.

"I guess I have to clean up your mess," muttered Sadie. "By the way, if anyone asks, we're _Greek_ sorcerers."

"What?" asked Carter.

Sadie pointed toward the Aphrodite cabin. Hieroglyphics shimmered faintly around her, but thankfully everyone was still focused on Piper and no one seemed to notice. "_Ha-di!"_

The rock beneath all the Aphrodite kids exploded, throwing them every which way.

"What is wrong with you pug-faced, war-painted hags?" shouted Sadie, shoving people out of her way to get closer to the Aphrodite campers. "Throwing stuff at someone who's climbing without a safety line? If Carter had been any slower with that transfiguration spell she could have died!"

"Wait, that was you guys?" asked one of the Stoll brothers, though Carter couldn't tell which one.

"Yeah," said Carter, hoping that Sadie knew what she was doing. "Greek sorcery," he added. "Sorry for the shock, Piper."

"No worries," said Piper shakily.

"So you guys are like Harry Potter?" one of the other Hermes kids wanted to know.

"No you idiot, they're obviously Hecate's kids."

"Not necessarily. They could have just been trained by –"

"What do you have to say for yourselves?" shouted Sadie, advancing on the Aprhodite girls again, probably to get speculation off the source of their powers and onto the fight.

"We say that you should worry about yourself instead of other people," said the girl who Carter recognized as Drew.

"Are you threatening me?" demanded Sadie. "How about we take this to wherever you people have duels around here?"

"So that you can just blast me with your magic?" asked Drew. "I don't think so!"

"I'll beat you down with my bare fists, you ugly pig."

"What did you call me?"

"Ugly pig. Hagfish. Stoat-face!"

"Hold me back!" shrieked Drew, stepping toward Sadie, albeit slowly.

"Wus," said Sadie, as two Aphrodite girls obeyed their leader and gripped Drew's arms. Drew made a half-hearted attempt at struggling against them but it was clear that she had no intention of fighting Sadie.

Carter hoped that Sadie would let it go at that. She'd made her point, after all, and it seemed like the Kanes had come out ahead from this incident, all things considered.

"What's going on here?" demanded Percy, sprinting onto the scene.

"You're lucky that Percy came to break things up," sneered Drew, as she abandoned her struggling act.

"More like you're lucky," said Carter, even though he knew that he and Sadie should be letting things go. "You have no idea what Sadie did to our enemies the last time we turned someone into a fruit bat."

"You _what?"_ Nico skidded to a stop beside Sadie looking horrified.

"It's okay, Nico," said Carter quickly, because he was afraid Nico might accidentally give something away. "Trust me. Everything's fine now."

"It would have been better if you and Percy waited another minute or two," muttered Sadie. "I was right about to mess that shrew's face up."

"Like you could," shot back Drew.

Nico looked warily at Drew, then reached out to Sadie. "Let it go," he said to her, taking her arm and guiding her away. "We don't need anymore trouble."

"Corpse Breath, you are trouble," sneered Drew. Her expression was malicious as she took a step forward. "If I was you, Sadie, I'd get away from him while I had the chance. But you're probably not that smart."

"Shut up," Sadie told her, but allowed Nico to pull her farther away.

"Look at what happens to everyone who hangs around him," said Drew. "They die."

Nico faltered.

"I said shut up," growled Sadie.

"First it was Mommy. Then big sis Bianca," continued Drew. "Have you ever wondered why, Nico? Have you ever thought that maybe it wasn't just bad luck? Maybe it was deliberate. Maybe they got themselves killed on purpose just to get away from you."

"Sadie, don't," said Carter quickly, but his heart really wasn't in it. If it had been, maybe he could have gotten to Sadie in time. Maybe. Probably not. Before he even finished speaking it was already too late.

Sadie came at Drew with all the fury of a lioness driven on the defensive, protecting another member of her pride. Drew started backing up, up the sloping rock, which got her a higher vantage point, but which didn't help her at all. Or at least it didn't help her much. Sadie had to punch upward to reach her. Her fist struck Drew right beneath her jaw in a vicious uppercut that snapped her head back and made the older demigod lose her balance and fall on her butt for the second time after a confrontation with Sadie, but if she and Sadie had both been on even ground Sadie probably would have broken her nose.

"Who do you think you are!" screamed Sadie. "Talking like that to someone who's only had lousy breaks his entire life! You're horrible! Goddess of love my arse! You're the most hateful bi –"

"Sadie!" Carter grabbed his sister from behind when she would have gone on to kick Drew while she was down. Not that Carter thought the shrew didn't deserve it, but if at all possible he thought they needed to avoid getting punished. It would make escaping harder.

"Let me go, Carter!" shouted Sadie. "You heard what she said! You think I should let her get away with talking like that? Now I see why Nico hates it here! Half the people in this camp suck! Ungrateful, bigoted, closed minded Yanks! Carter, let go!"

"No! Now calm down!" Carter glanced up as Percy moved to stand in between Sadie and Drew in case Sadie managed to break free, but from the expression on Percy's face it was clear that he'd rather let Sadie tear Drew apart. Percy's responsible streak seemed to be working against him now.

"Hey Connor, Travis," said Percy, "Nico and I are going to borrow these two unclaimed campers to prevent further bloodshed."

"Alright," said one of the Stoll brothers.

"We're cool with that," said the other.

"Come on," said Percy, shepherding Sadie and Carter away from the cowering Drew. "Nico, you too. Nico?" he asked again when Nico didn't react at first.

"Yeah," said Nico despondently. "I'm coming."

Sadie stopped struggling at the sound of Nico's morose tone. She looked to their friend then reached out and grabbed his arm as he moved closer. "Come on, Nico," she said. "Let's go."

* * *

AN: Sorry it took me so long to get this chap up. I was trying to be extra responsible so that my parents would let me go to the midnight showing of Harry Potter when it first came out. Then my stupid sister came home for Thanksgiving, left the computer our parents bought for her in her dorm, and proceeded to hog mine which I bought for myself after saving for two years. This is the first chance I've gotten to be on my own computer since Thurs b/c of her. I had emailed Heather Fleming a thank you note for giving me a ride and waiting with me that night 3 weeks ago, and she emailed me back this Fri, and attached the first 3 chapters of her next Gargoyle Legends book because I told her how much I was looking forward to its release, and I didn't get it until tonight because of my stupid sister. Again, I wonder why I couldn't have gotten a cool, nice, responsible sister like her. I seriously wish I could trade . . .

But the chapters she sent me were so awesome. Her books keep getting better and better. I've been trying to limit my raving b/c I'm probably starting to sound like a commercial or a rabid fan, but these are the kind of books I'm always hoping someone will recommend to me, which is why I'm recommending them so highly to everyone I know who loves to read. Because the characters, the plots, and the mythology, they're just everything I've been looking for, so for everyone like me who asks for books for Christmas, I recommend Heather Fleming's Gargoyle Legends (in order): The Gargoyle Club, Grotesque Game, Demon's Nest, and Devil Water.

Next chap will be up as fast as I can write and post it.


	10. Chapter 10

10

"You okay?" Sadie asked. When Nico didn't look up she put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a rough but affectionate shake. "Hey? You okay?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Why wouldn't I be?" It looked to Sadie like Nico was trying to put on a carefree expression, but it was actually painful to see, so she looked away.

"We're sorry, by the way," said Carter.

"Don't be. It's not your fault that Drew is such a shrew," said Percy.

"Well, we're sorry about that too, but I was talking about the stuff that we did," said Carter. "Turning Piper into a fruit bat and starting that fight."

"I'm not sorry about the fight," said Sadie. "Sorry that you broke it up so fast, yeah, but not sorry for starting it."

"Sadie –"

"Don't 'Sadie' me. Drew deserved it."

"What's done is done," said Percy. "And since you turned Piper into a bat to keep her from getting hurt, then turned her right back, I think it'll be okay. Unless she complains directly to Chiron, but since she's new I don't think she'll take her complaints straight to him. He doesn't have a whole lot to do with most new campers now, which is lucky for you guys right now."

They were in the Hades cabin, where Percy said people were least likely to disturb them, and Sadie could see why. Nico's cabin was like a crypt of the creepiest kind. The only light in the room came from green flames on the torches and the shadows looked like they were alive. There were several beds that were little more than slabs of marble, and Sadie had the feeling that anyone sleeping on one of them would look eerily like a carved coffin cover, which was probably the point. She wondered how Nico could stand living there. His room at their place looked like a room of death as well, but at least it had a few homey touches, like a pedestal table for playing Mythomagic, and a bed that didn't make him look like a corpse laid out for viewing.

"So do we have a plan now?" Sadie asked.

"Actually, we do," said Percy. "Nico came up with one. Didn't you, Nico?"

Again, Nico seemed to be staring off into space.

"Hey," said Sadie. She gave him another shake. "Pay attention when people are talking to you."

"What?" Nico asked. "I was paying attention."

"You weren't."

"Was too."

"Were not."

"Too."

"Not."

"I was!"

"You're a liar is what you are!"

"Focus, please," said Percy, his voice quite tolerant all things considered. "The plan, Nico?"

"Oh yeah, the plan." Nico sat up a bit straighter, definitely paying attention now. "We're leaving tonight. I don't want you here while the investigators are here. So we're going to make a break for the camp's borders and then I'm shadow traveling us someplace very far away, so far that the hunters won't be able to track us, and we'll lay low until the investigators catch the killer."

"If we run, won't they think –"

"Yes, which is why we're going so far away that they can't trace us," said Nico. "They'll realize you're not the killer when they do their investigation, or if someone else gets killed. The former is preferable, but if they decide not to have an investigation just because they think you must be the guilty ones, and the latter happens then that's their fault, not ours. I'm not going to risk your secrets getting out while the investigators investigate everyone here, because I don't trust them not to automatically think you're guilty."

"You'll be coming with us?" asked Carter.

Nico nodded.

"Good," said Sadie. "I don't trust these people with your safety either."

"Plus we like having you with us," added Carter. "Things aren't the same when you're not around."

Their encouraging words seemed to have the opposite effect on Nico than what they'd desired, because the boy seemed to shrink in on himself and his gaze dropped to the stone floor.

"Nico," said Percy. "You know what Drew said was complete BS."

"Yeah . . ."

"You _know_. All the people in this room are proof of it. I'm still here. Sadie and Carter are still here. And you belong with us. So forget about what that stupid daughter of Aphrodite said. You know they're not known for their brains."

That made Nico smirk. "Too true."

"Feel better now?" asked Sadie. "Or do you need a hug? Because Carter will be happy to give you one."

"That won't be necessary," Nico said quickly as Carter gave Sadie a deadly glare but stayed silent, probably afraid of hurting Nico's feelings if he protested about not wanting to hug him.

* * *

By lunch time Thalia was more convinced than ever that something was going on between Nico, Percy, and those two new demigods. She heard about what happened at the rock wall, and how Percy and Nico had taken Sadie and Carter with them away from the rest of the campers. Her suspicions were not assuaged when she saw that the two unclaimed newbies had returned to the Hermes Cabin's table for lunch.

In fact, those four seemed to be trying too hard not to draw attention, or at least that was how it looked to Thalia. She noticed that Percy and Nico were both eating at their own assigned tables for that meal, which they hadn't done since Thalia had arrived. But that was just as well, Thalia thought. It would give her a chance to confront Nico alone for once, something she hadn't managed since arriving at the camp, unless you counted that fiasco when she pinned him to the tree with her arrows and was interrupted by Sadie and Carter.

After scraping a chunk of her venison into the fire as her offering to Artemis, Thalia made a beeline for the Hades table where Nico already sat eating a hamburger and French fries.

"Go away," he greeted her. "I don't wanna talk to you."

"That's real mature," Thalia told him. "How old are you again?"

"If I tell you, will you leave?"

"Why don't you grow up?" Thalia asked.

"You have no one but your own father to blame. If he hadn't murdered my mother I'd be like seventy or eighty. Or dead. Now go away."

"I heard about what happened at the lava wall today," Thalia told him. "How your friends turned a girl into a vampire bat –"

"Fruit bat."

"Whatever. They turned her into a bat. So either they're the children of a god or goddess who's a patron to magicians, or they've been trained by an experienced sorcerer or sorceress."

"Hmm. I wonder."

"What I really want to know though, is have you been hanging around them since Bianca stopped being able to look in on you?" asked Thalia.

Nico glared at her. "Since she stopped being able to spy on me, you mean. Why is it that everyone thinks this is a bad thing?"

"Because it takes serious magic to block powers like Bianca has –"

"I've already told you, it was because Anubis gave me this pendant." Nico touched the cord that he wore the pendant on, though the pendant itself remained tucked inside his shirt, out of sight.

"I looked at that pendant, remember? I don't think it's powerful enough to block a Child of the Underworld's powers like that."

"Because you're an expert on magic artifacts? Or Egyptian gods? Or are you an expert on Children of the Underworld?" Nico asked. "Because if not you'll forgive me for doubting your ability to judge something like that."

Thalia scowled, but had to admit that Nico did have a point. She could no more tell if a pendant had a protective or shielding spell on it than she could tell if it had a death curse on it. "Why would Anubis give you something like that?" she asked instead.

"I already told you, because we're friends." Nico crossed his arms, looking angry, and annoyed, and a little bit hurt. "And I wasn't lying about that. There are actually people in this world that want to be my friends."

"I never said there weren't," Thalia said defensively. "But I heard . . . I heard one of those Aphrodite tramps said something to that effect this morning, which was why that new girl who is your friend broke her nose." She looked toward the Aphrodite table. "But I don't see any of them with nose splints."

"You heard a garbled version of the story, I think," said Nico. "Sadie punched her in the jaw. Do you remember Drew? If you ever knew her? She's the Asian girl with the huge bruise just below her mouth."

Thalia smirked as her eyes rested on the girl in question. "That's something you don't see every day. How'd Sadie manage to do that?"

"By hitting her really hard, I imagine."

"Yeah, I know that," said Thalia. "But in that spot? From that angle?"

Nico blinked thoughtfully. "I think I remember Drew backing up onto some rocks, which put her at a higher vantage point. Sadie stayed on the ground and was punching upward . . . Upward . . . Ahh!"

"What?" Thalia looked at him alarmed by his strangled cry and his suddenly feverish expression. "What's wrong, Nico?"

"Th-that – it – she – the angle!"

"Nico, calm down." Thalia reached out to grab his shoulder, because she wasn't sure if he was about to have a seizure or something. "Breathe. Take your time and use your words."

"Nico? What's wrong?" Percy was immediately by Nico's side, having seen that something was going on. "Are you sick?"

"No. I just . . . I thought of something." Nico stood up so fast that the bench he was sitting on fell down, and Thalia kept a tight hold on him because she was afraid he'd go toppling down after it. But Nico remained on his feet, surprisingly steady, and when he looked from Thalia, to Percy, then back to Thalia again, his expression was grim and serious and composed. "Thalia, this may sound weird, but I need to see Karena's body again. Something just occurred to me . . . about the way both she and Martina were killed, and if I'm right . . . If I'm right we'll be able to narrow the suspect pool down to about three or four people."

* * *

AN: Back in Nov. my stupid sister kicked over my hard drive and cracked it open. I used my savings and Christmas money to buy a laptop, but as soon as I got it set up I got really, really grounded for doing what I still believe was the right thing. I'm not making excuses, but I thought anyone who came back to read the rest of this story deserved an explanation for why I was gone so long, and this is it. My grounding is over, and I can use my laptop for non-school related stuff again, so I'm finishing the story.


	11. Chapter 11

11

Sadie watched with interest as Nico, Percy, and Thalia left the eating area with a sense of urgency and for a second wondered if maybe she and Carter should go after them. Something had happened right before they got up. She hadn't missed Nico's feverish expression, or the grave looks on their face as they hurried away.

"Don't," Carter told her, guessing what she was thinking. "If they needed us, they'd get us."

"That's something you don't see every day," remarked one of the Hermes' campers. "All three of the Big Three's kids collaborating with each other."

"Ten drachma that Annabeth . . . oh never mind," muttered Connor Stoll. Sadie saw the girl she'd learned was Percy's girlfriend go racing after them. "She could have at least given us time to place bets on how long it would take her to follow them."

"The nerve of her," said Travis.

"I have to go to the bathroom," said Maya, the other unclaimed demigod who'd been picked up along with Sadie, Carter, and Piper when they'd been brought to camp.

"Then go," said Travis.

"Go back to the cabin and go, he means," said Connor. "Don't just go here at the table."

"But we're not supposed to go anywhere on our own," Piper reminded them.

"Oh yeah, right." Connor glanced over his campers. "Then you go with her, new girl. And you other new girl, you go too."

"We have names, you know," said Sadie.

"And after you get claimed we'll probably learn them," said Travis.

Sadie scowled but Piper and Maya were already standing up. She glanced at Carter who shook his head, obviously not wanting her to make a big deal out of it, and decided that he was right, it wasn't worth it to pitch a fit or protest now. Besides, she didn't mind being with Piper or Maya. But before leaving she did make it a point to snag the cinnamon scone off her plate, not trusting it to still be there when she came back since she was among the children of the patron god of thieves.

* * *

Nico hesitated at the entrance of Artemis' Cabin, not sure if boys were allowed inside or not.

"Well, are you coming or not?" asked Thalia. She looked at him and Percy who was hovering behind him impatiently.

"We're not going to get transformed into jackelopes if we step inside or anything, are we?" Percy asked.

"Don't be ridiculous," said Thalia. "Come on, already. I want to know what Nico figured out."

"I'd like to know too," said Percy.

"I want to see the body first," said Nico. "I was on the verge of hypothermia the last time I saw her and I want to make sure . . . just let me see her." He didn't feel like trying to explain his hypothesis until he had all the facts.

Inside Artemis' Cabin looked like the inside of a fancy hunting lodge, with polished log walls, stuffed animal and monster heads hanging from the walls, along with weapons, a big stone fire place, and rows of wood framed bunk beds lining the walls. Nico couldn't help but hate it. This was what his sister had given him up for, so by its very nature he found it loathsome.

All of the bunk beds except one had animal skins on them in place of blankets or sheets. The one bed that was covered with a linen sheet was one of the bottom ones, and beneath the sheet was the unmistakable form of a human body. Nico wondered if the Hunters would be making a shroud for Karena, or if that was just a Camp Half-Blood tradition. Not that he cared. But he also wondered if they'd made one for Bianca even though there hadn't been a body to bury or burn . . .

_Stop that,_ he told himself. _You have a job to do._

He felt Anubis at the edges of his consciousness, looking in on what was going on, but was grateful that the god chose not to comment on his weakness. Nico steeled his nerves and then walked to the linen covered bed. Carefully, and as respectfully as he could, he pulled the sheet down, away from Karena's face and throat, folding it so that it creased just below her collarbone. Then he examined the wound that had caused Karena's death.

Immediately his suspicions were confirmed. "Damn," he whispered and gingerly touched the lacerations on Karena's neck, tracing the downward angle of the marks. "I was right."

"Right about what?" demanded Annabeth. She stormed into the Artemis Cabin with none of the hesitation that Nico and Percy had shown. "Did you figure something out?"

Nico nodded. "I'm pretty sure I know who the killer is now. And if it's not her, then we can still narrow it down to probably three or four people, or less."

"How?" asked Percy.

"What do you see?" Thalia wanted to know.

"The angle of these marks," said Nico. "They were made by someone much shorter than her. And Karena is on the short side to begin with. I mean _was_ on the short side to begin with."

"What makes you say that someone short made them?" asked Annabeth.

Nico held back a sigh. It would be so much easier if people just accepted his morbid familiarity with death, but no. They had to make him explain every gruesome fact. And then they thought he was weird for knowing it, even though they were the ones who asked him to elaborate on his knowledge. "Do you have a piece of rope?" he asked Thalia. "Or string? Something to simulate the murder weapon?"

Thalia looked a bit suspicious but went to one of her packs and pulled out a length of rope that was probably meant for climbing. "You need this cut?"

"Two feet of it or so, please," Nico told her. Once she cut the rope and handed it to him, Nico in turn gave it to Percy. "Here. Strangle me."

"Er . . ."

"Not for real," Nico said. "I'm proving a point." He turned his back to Percy, just as Karena's back would have been to her killer.

Percy sighed then draped the rope around Nico's neck, then pulled on it just the slightest amount, taking care to be pathetically gentle.

"Oh never mind." Nico snatched it from him and tossed it back to Thalia. "Here. You strangle me then." He turned his back to Thalia and Thalia didn't disappoint. She wrapped the rope around his throat as though she really planned on garroting him, and pulled it back, not tight enough to actually hurt him, but enough to mimic how the real motion would have gone.

"Good," Nico told her. "Now look at the angle of the rope."

"It's sloped upward," Annabeth stated.

"Pulling upward on the rope is something of a natural reaction," Nico said. "Even if you don't know that it cuts off the blood flow to the brain, it's what feels right to your arms. So anyone taller than Karena, or the same height, would have pulled upward on the rope on instinct. It's not impossible that they would have pulled it back perfectly horizontally if they'd put their mind to it, but that didn't happen. You can see by those marks that they pulled downward."

"But there are any number of people here who are shorter than her," Annabeth pointed out.

"Look at the angle again." Nico tugged on the rope that was still around his neck and Thalia immediately released him. He stepped back toward Karena's body and brushed her hair away from the rope marks so that they could be seen more clearly by everyone."

"It's angled so that it's nearly vertical," whispered Thalia.

"Which means that her killer was either a midget or a very small child," said Nico. "There aren't many demigods that small here. But there is one who arrived yesterday. The same day that Martina was murdered." He blinked rapidly, fighting back tears. "Martina's wounds are further proof. The way that arrow was stabbed into her . . ."

"At an upward angle," Percy remembered.

Nico nodded, still blinking, then turned back to Karena. He pulled the sheet back up to cover her face again.

The four demigods stood in silence for several moments, Percy, Thalia, and Annabeth taking in what Nico had come to terms with already since he'd been thinking about it all the way there.

"But why?" asked Thalia, finally breaking the silence. "What did she do it for? Why would she do that? She didn't even know Karena or Martina? She only just got here."

"I think in her case it's probably that she's mentally insane," Nico said. "I'm sorry, Thalia."

Thalia clapped her hand down on his shoulder. "You have nothing to be sorry for. You just solved a murder. You did good, little cousin."

Nico looked at Thalia uncertainly, then nodded. "Thanks, Thalia." He didn't feel like he should be getting compliments for this since what he'd discovered hadn't made the situation suck any less, but Thalia's reaction was much nicer than some peoples' was going to be, Nico knew. The Aphrodite cabin would be lining up to call him morbid after this . . . not that he planned to stick around for that. Getting Sadie and Carter away from here was still his top priority.

"We should tell Chiron," said Percy.

"Yeah," Annabeth agreed, reaching for Percy's hand. "Let's go."

* * *

AN: Kudos to Ailat and anyone else who figured out whodunit. And thank you to all who reviewed and gave me a warm welcome back.


	12. Chapter 12

12

The first thing Nico noticed as they returned to the pavilion was that Maya wasn't at the Hermes table. The second thing was that Sadie wasn't there either.

A cold, sinking feeling grew in his stomach and he broke away from Percy, Thalia, and Annabeth, who were walking briskly, but with no real urgency, and sprinted across the distance. "Where are they?" he demanded.

All the Hermes campers looked at him strangely. Some cringed away. Carter caught on quickly that something was wrong and stood up. "Sadie just went back to the cabin with Piper and what's-her-name, the little girl."

_"Merda!"_ Nico shouted the first curse that came into his mind and spun back around. He nearly collided with Percy who'd picked up his pace after seeing something was wrong, then shoved his way between Thalia and Annabeth and took off at a dead run.

Logically, he knew, it wasn't likely that Maya would try anything. Not while there were two people there. Whichever one she didn't kill first would be on guard, or would be a witness to the crime. But he knew that logic and psychopaths didn't always go hand in hand, and he'd learned not to ignore his gut when it was telling him something was wrong.

"Hey, Nico!" Percy shouted but Nico didn't stop or slow down to see what he wanted, and then he heard the sound of footsteps right behind him. Whether it was Percy, Thalia, or both of them and Annabeth and Carter as well, he couldn't tell and didn't really care. Because his sense of urgency was nearly choking him now, telling him that he was going to be too late. Someone else was going to get hurt and if that someone else was Sadie . . .

_Faster, faster . . . Anubis, help me!_ Nico screamed into his own mind.

The god, who'd retreated to the back of his mind after Nico had finished his revelation about who the killer was, snapped into awareness again. _Nico? What's wrong?_

Nico sent him a condensed stream of information centered around his fear for Sadie's safety. _Help me! Help her! Do something!_

He felt a similar wave of panic flow from Anubis, but then the god shoved it aside and began to channel more of his essence and strength into his host.

It was risky. Both Nico and Anubis knew that they were playing with fire. Neither knew who might be capable of sensing Egyptian magic, and whether or not they were close enough to feel it, or if they'd recognize it even if they did. But it was a necessary risk. It was for Sadie.

At that moment Nico couldn't think of anything worse than her suddenly not being around anymore. Over the past month and a half, Sadie and Carter had become very important to him. In a world where most people shunned him on principal, he had his work cut out trying to find a place where he fit in. Sadie and Carter had carved out a place in their lives specifically for him. They gave him a place to call home, and treated him like more than a comrade in arms, or a friend. They, along with Percy, were the closest thing Nico had to family. And even though they hadn't known each other very long, they'd been through quite a bit together. Nico and Sadie had especially been through a lot together. Sadie was the one who'd saved his life when Aziza had captured and nearly killed him. She'd taken care of him when he was too weak and too hurt to take care of himself. He couldn't let anything happen to her now. He'd do whatever it took to keep her safe, and was glad Anubis felt the same way.

With power flooding his veins, Nico was able to move at a speed he'd previously have thought impossible. It wasn't as fast as shadow traveling, which he couldn't do during the day, or in the middle of camp, but it was probably the next best thing. The world sort of blurred around him and it felt more like he was flying than running, his feet barely skimming the ground.

He felt his own consciousness being shoved aside and for once didn't fight as Anubis took control of his body. If it meant saving Sadie then he'd let Anubis be in charge for a freaking week if he wanted.

_Faster!_ He told Anubis.

_I'm going as fast as I can!_

* * *

Maya took forever to use the bathroom, so Piper and Sadie sat outside the door, in silence at first, but then they got to talking.

"So what were you doing before you got drug along with us and came here?" Piper wanted to know.

"Traveling around with my brother," Sadie told her. She wished that she could have elaborated and told Piper more, but she knew that now wasn't the time. "What about you?"

"I was at one of those wilderness camp schools where they send juvenile delinquents," answered Piper.

"Huh. I've heard demigods tend to have problems about destroying schools and stuff," said Sadie. "I'm guessing that happened to you too?"

"Er, actually I got sent there for stealing a car," Piper told her, then went on to explain her situation.

Sadie couldn't help but laugh. "Now that's a useful power," she said, more certain than ever now that she wanted Piper on her side. If nothing else, they'd always have transportation when they needed it.

"So you've known about all this demigod stuff for awhile?" Piper asked.

"Er, the demigod stuff . . . yeah, for awhile." It wasn't a lie. A month and a half counted as awhile. "Not too long, but just before Christmas last year my life, and my brother's life got really crazy. A lot of stuff happened and now we kind of have a mission. Then we met Nico and Percy and got in even more trouble, but it worked out in the end. It's good to have friends like them. Hey Piper?"

"Yes?"

"I feel kind of bad about this because I think you're pretty cool, and I think we could be good friends, but Carter and I aren't going to be staying here at Camp Half-Blood."

Piper looked worried. "But everyone says it's too dangerous for us to survive on our own out there."

"It is dangerous out there, in so many more ways than most of the people here know, but that's kind of why Carter and I have to leave."

"That mission you mentioned?" asked Piper.

"Yeah. We have some . . . family things, I guess you could call them, to take care of. Don't tell anyone else, please."

"I won't," promised Piper. "You have a right to go where you want, after all. And I saw you guys in action."

"Nico stays with us sometimes too," Sadie told her. "He's a really cool guy. The people here who don't bother getting to know him are really missing out. So . . . do me a favor? Try to get to know him when he comes to camp."

Piper nodded. "Of course. From what I've seen of him so far he seems like a nice boy."

"He really is," Sadie said. "And he's a really good friend."

The bathroom door creaked open and Maya came out.

"Finally," said Sadie as she stood up. "Let's go back to lunch."

"Just a second," Piper said quickly. "While we're here I need to go too."

Sadie nodded and sat back down.

"Sorry. I'll be quick."

"Don't worry about it," Sadie told her.

Piper shut the door behind her and Sadie leaned back against the wall again. Maya came over and stood beside her.

"So what's your story?" Sadie asked Maya, more because she was bored than because she really cared about how the girl had come to Camp Half-Blood.

"Story?"

"What were you doing before you came here?"

"I was in St. Mary's School for Girls."

"Catholic school, huh?" asked Sadie. "Yeah, I guess they wouldn't be too tolerant of demigods."

"I hated it there. They always kept me locked up and never let me have any fun," said Maya.

"This camp must seem like heaven to you then," said Sadie. Funny how what seemed like a dangerous prison to her and Carter could seem so different to someone else.

"I like it here," said Maya. "I can do whatever I want and no one stops me. Like this."

Sadie glanced toward her to see what 'this' was. If her reflexes had been any slower, things could have ended very badly for her right then and there. It was ironic, but she kind of had all those House of Life freaks and various other Egyptian monsters who'd been trying to kill her since Christmas to thank for developing the reflexes that saved her life right then, because Sadie only barely managed to get an arm up between her throat and the steak knife that Maya thrust at her throat.

"What in Hades?" cried Sadie, using one of Nico's favorite exclamations without thinking about it. "Damnit, kid, that hurt! What were you – Hey!" She blocked with her arm again and cried out again as her skin was slashed open a second time. "What the bloody hell are you doing you stupid Yank?"

And Maya laughed. One of those creepy-kid-in-a-horror-movie laughs of the kind that Sadie and her mates had spent a lot of time making fun of back when she still lived in England and did normal things like watch movies that her grandparents would have freaked if they'd known about. But somehow it was a lot scarier now that she was face to face with one of those disturbing kids with a knife than it had been when she'd seen them on a TV screen, and being seated, with her legs sprawled out carelessly was far from the best position to be in.

Maya lunged forward, holding the knife in both hands and Sadie, to her shame, couldn't hold back a scream.

She did manage to grab Maya's wrists and keep herself from being stabbed, but she ended up falling over with Maya on top of her.

"Uh, Sadie? Are you guys okay?" asked Piper, sounding alarmed.

"Help!" Sadie managed to scream.

Then two things happened at once. The bathroom door flew open at the exact same moment that the cabin's front door flew off its hinges. Piper stepped out of the bathroom then froze in shock at the sight of Sadie, Maya, the steak knife, and the blood that was flowing freely from Sadie's arms. And Nico flew in from the outside, his eyes wild and his expression so fierce that he looked like the world's youngest fallen angel on a mission to smite the hell out of someone. He didn't draw up short in shock when he saw Maya trying to kill Sadie, or even hesitate. He simply _attacked_.

He tackled Maya, his momentum throwing both of them clean off of Sadie and halfway across the cabin.

Sadie screamed again, this time in fear for Nico, but wasted no time getting to her feet. To her immense relief, she heard a clatter as the knife was knocked from Maya's hands and thudded across the floor. Sadie hurried forward and retrieved it. She didn't really think that Maya would be able to get the upper hand against Nico without it, but didn't want to take any chances.

_"Dio boia!"_ yelped Nico in a pained voice.

"What?" Sadie asked. She hurried forward as Nico pinned Maya down in a painful looking hold. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

"The little brat bit me." Nico looked disgusted, and Sadie felt a wave of alarum as she saw black blood streaming freely down his neck. But Nico didn't seem overly concerned about his own welfare. His disgust morphed into fear as he looked at her again. "Sadie, are you okay? She cut you? Is it bad?"

"It's just a few scratches," Sadie assured him. "She cut me but didn't stab me, so I'm okay. But your throat, Nico . . ."

"It's not as bad as it looks."

"You're bleeding like a stuck pig! And your blood . . ."

Nico's eyes widened as he realized what Sadie had thought of just a moment earlier. He might have said something, but at that instant Maya started screaming like a banshee, horrible painful sounding shrieks like someone was torturing her.

"Shut up, you stu- !" Nico growled as they both turned to look at her. Then he realized why she was screaming and his voice died in his throat.

"Bloody hell," groaned Sadie as she witnessed, for the first time, the effect that Nico's black blood had on a normal demigod's body.

She supposed that they should have been better prepared for the results. They knew that his blood was capable of eating through glass and protective magic spells, and back when they'd been kidnapped by Aziza, Sadie had gotten the idea of using Nico's black blood to burn through the collar that had been sapping his powers. Then Nico had used his blood to burn through the bars of their cell. Sadie had actually been the one to draw his blood that first time, and she'd done it by biting him, and she remembered that her teeth had started to fizzle from just the slightest contact with it. So of all people she really should have expected it. But the only thing other than shock that she could feel as she watched the black blood's effects on Maya was horror.

Because everywhere that Maya was splattered with black blood, her skin began to decay. And since it seemed like she'd gotten a mouthful of the black blood when she bit Nico, it was a really horrible sight. As Sadie watched several of Maya's teeth dropped out of her mouth, and the splatters on her face and arms burned into the little girl's skin, turning it a very corpse-like shade of gray.

"Crap," muttered Nico. He released Maya who continued to scream, so that he could clamp one hand over his throat to try to staunch the bleeding.

"Not good," said Sadie. Without really thinking about what she was doing, Sadie stored the steak knife in her Duat locker and pulled out a piece of rope so that they could tie up Maya.

"Nico! Sadie!"

"Sadie! What's going on? Are you okay?"

"Nico!"

Sadie had just finished calling forth the rope when in rushed Percy, Carter right behind him, and Thalia and Annabeth right behind them.

Sadie and Nico looked at each other, and Sadie knew that they were both thinking the exact same thing.

_How the heck are we going to explain this?_

* * *

AN: In case you were wondering, it was Nico who was in control of his body once he got inside the cabin. Anubis took over while he was running so that he could use his powers to boost Nico's speed, and blew the door off its hinges (because it was faster than opening it), but gave the wheel back to Nico when they attacked Maya because Nico's more used to fighting in the body that they're sharing, since it belongs to him.

I think the next chapter is going to be the last one in this story. I have it written out on notebook paper, but it's hard to judge how long it will end up being when I type it up. I'll try to have that posted sometime tomorrow, or Tuesday at the latest.


	13. Chapter 13

13

Thalia took charge of Maya, who was still screaming and flailing about in pain as her face continued to rot, but Thalia had absolutely no sympathy for the girl. Not after Maya had killed Karena and Martina. She snatched up the rope that Sadie offered her and used it to hogtie the little brat.

It was impossible not to pay attention to her injuries, even though Thalia's interest was more clinical than sympathetic. For a few moments she wondered if whatever Nico had done to Maya was actually going to kill the girl. It seemed like it would be an extremely painful death, having your body rot from the outside in. But then the spread of those plague-like sores seemed to slow and finally stop, leaving Maya with a grotesque looking skeletal hand, a splattering of plague-like sores over her arms and neck, and a horribly disfigured face. And maybe it was cruel of Thalia, but she was glad. Maya no longer looked like an innocent little girl anymore. She looked like the monster she was, so less people were likely to feel sympathy for her, or be inclined to show her leniency for her actions.

Finally able to tear her eyes away from Maya's plight, Thalia turned her attention to what the others were doing. Part of what she saw at least made her smile.

Sadie was trying to fend off her brother who was trying to fuss over the cuts on her arm. Piper had torn off the sleeves of her shirt to make bandages, but was standing back a few steps looking bewildered, like she wasn't quite sure what she should be doing, while Carter and Sadie argued it out over whether or not Sadie needed her arms bandaged.

Far less humorous was Nico, who had scooted as far away from everyone else as he could, and kept one hand clamped against his throat. He was still bleeding, Thalia saw. And then she realized with shock and alarm that it was his blood that had caused Maya's plague-reminiscent injuries and disfigurement. The floor was pitted with spots that looked like acid burns wherever his blood had fallen, and Nico's shirt showed signs of being eaten away as well.

Percy was holding Nico's jacket, which they'd probably gotten off of him to save it from the same fate that his shirt was meeting. He looked like he wanted to try to get closer to the younger boy, but Nico's glare seemed to be what was stopping him.

A moment later Annabeth stepped out of the bathroom with the Hermes Cabin's first aid kit.

"It's not as well stocked as it should be," Annabeth was saying. "I think Hermes' kids swiped all the pain killers, but there's some antiseptic and enough bandages."

"I don't need antiseptic," growled Nico.

"You were bitten and the human mouth has so much bacteria in it –"

"And my blood is pretty much acid. Trust me, I'll be fine. Just stay away from me until the bleeding stops."

"Is he okay?" Thalia asked Percy since she knew Nico wouldn't answer her straight.

"Probably," said Percy.

"His blood is what did that?" Thalia motioned toward Maya. "That can't be normal."

"He's the son of Hades."

"I've never heard of any Children of the Underworld having blood with properties like that," Annabeth pointed out.

"How much do you really know about Children of the Underworld at all?" demanded Nico. "As far as I know, there's not any kind of a handbook cataloguing all the different ways we fit the definition of freak."

Thalia sighed, and once again had the feeling that Nico was hiding something. And she really wanted to know what. But despite what she wanted, she had to acknowledge that there were more important things to worry about than that. "Are you okay, Nico?" she asked, speaking the question to him this time. "I know that something freaky is going on with you, and that something isn't right, but for now I'm prepared to drop that issue because it's not as important as your safety. So please, just tell me, are you really all right?"

Nico stared at Thalia with dark, solemn eyes. His gaze was so intent that it was almost like he was trying to look through her rather than at her. Then finally, he nodded. "I'm okay," he told her. "I really am."

"But everything's not okay," said Annabeth, her biting tone almost enough to make Thalia wince.

She expected Nico to shut down and close them off then, and go back to being sullen and withdrawn, but the younger boy surprised her.

"But it _will_ be okay," he said with conviction. "I really believe that."

"Okay," Thalia said, deciding to leave it at that. She shot Annabeth a look, which Annabeth caught and nodded.

"But you'll let us know if you need help?" Annabeth couldn't seem to help but ask.

Nico blinked, and looked surprised. He glanced at Percy briefly, then at Carter and Sadie who were watching this exchange in silence. Then he looked back to Annabeth and Thalia and nodded. "I will."

"Then say it," pressed Annabeth.

"I just did!"

"In as many words."

Nico rolled his eyes, but obliged. "If I need help, I'll let you know. Both of you." He glanced at Thalia too. "I promise."

Thalia fished out several of her business cards. She handed one to Nico, then also gave one to Sadie and Piper. "If you need me, Nico, you can reach me at this number. And Piper, Sadie, if you two ever want to join the hunters, give me a call. We can always use girls like you."

"Thanks," Sadie said and tried to hand the card back, "but I'm sticking with my brother."

Thalia held up her hand motioning for Sadie to keep the card. "Then use it to call me if the two of you need help. Since you seem to be involved in whatever mess Nico's gotten himself into."

Sadie hesitated then nodded. Then she did some sort of sleight of hand trick and made the card disappear. Or maybe it wasn't slight of hand because Thalia thought she could feel some sort of power around Sadie as the card vanished, but had no idea what it was. "Thanks," said Sadie, a smile on her face. "Thanks a lot."

* * *

From there things took a turn for the tedious. Chiron had to be informed about what had happened. Testimonies had to be given and repeated. Sadie wasn't quite sure how the others worked it out so that she never had to tell the story of what happened to Chiron, but somehow they pulled it off. It probably helped that Nico and Piper were both able to provide an account of what had happened when Maya attacked Sadie, and that Percy has hustled Sadie off to get her arm treated before Sadie's turn could come. Naturally Carter went with Sadie, then Percy took them to the Hades cabin to hide out for the rest of the day.

Nico finally joined them just before dinner, as it started to get dark. He looked tired, Sadie noticed immediately, but not as bad as she'd seen him look in the past, like when he'd been kidnapped by Aziza. He was wearing his jacket again, and a new shirt since his blood had dissolved the one he'd been wearing earlier that day. There was a bandage taped to his neck that covered up the bite wound that Maya had given him, and since it hadn't been dissolved, Sadie guessed he must have stopped bleeding.

"Time to get out of here," Nico told Sadie and Carter.

"You're sure it's okay?" Carter asked.

Nico raised an eyebrow. "Would you want to stay even if it's not okay?"

"Alright, stupid question," Carter acknowledged. "Sorry. I'm just trying not to cause more trouble for you than we have to, since we've already caused quite a bit."

"No you haven't," said Nico. He sat down on his bed and rubbed both hands over his face. "That stupid psycho-kid was the one causing problems. You were just unlucky enough to get caught up in them."

"Why was she doing it?" asked Sadie. "Did she say?"

Nico shook his head. "But they did find out that the so-called school she was staying at before she got picked up was actually a mental institution, and that she was sent there in the first place for stabbing her mom, step-father, and half-sister. So she's certifiably crazy. We don't know if she was born that way, or if she turned out like that because her family was terrible to her and drove her to it. I know it shouldn't matter, considering that she killed two completely unrelated demigods for no real reason, but most people can't help but feel sorry for her."

"Do you?" Sadie asked.

Nico scowled. "No. She killed one of my friends. There's no excuse she can make for it that I'd forgive her for because Martina didn't deserve to die. Karena either."

"I'm sorry," Sadie told him.

Nico shook his head. "No. It's not your fault. Come on. Let's just get out of here." He stood up again, picked up a backpack that lay packed by the door, and walked back outside with Sadie and Carter following him.

The shadows seemed to thicken around all three of them as they walked through the falling darkness, into the woods that bordered the camp, and Sadie knew that Nico was using his powers to help conceal them. Thankfully, no one stopped them this time by pinning Nico to a tree with arrows, and no one's spirit was released causing Nico to turn around and go find their body this time. No one even seemed to be following them, so Sadie guessed that the Hunters had probably stopped their stake out on Nico's cabin.

It seemed like they walked for a very long time before Nico finally stopped and proclaimed that they had crossed the camp's borders.

"Where are we going?" Carter wanted to know.

"Home," Nico told them and held out his hands to them. Sadie took one, and Carter took the other, and they both held on tight. Then they were swallowed by shadows completely as Nico summoned his powers once again.

They landed on the balcony of their apartment, and Sadie and Carter were both ready to catch Nico when he stumbled. He had grown more accustomed to shadow traveling with other people, but always felt the effects of it the worst right after finishing a jump.

"It's alright for us to come back here?" asked Sadie as they helped Nico inside. "No one will come after us?"

"Not now that they caught Maya," said Nico. It was testament to how exhausted he was that he let them help him to a chair without raising a fuss.

_"Where have you been?"_ Bast swept down upon Sadie and Carter, crushing them both in a hug. "I've been looking everywhere for you, you little heathens! Do you have any idea how worried I was?"

"Sorry Bast," coughed Sadie.

"Yeah. Sorry," echoed Carter.

"I thought you'd been captured or killed! I was staking out the First Nome, and retracing every street in Washington DC trying to find you! And where the heck did you pick up the dog? I thought we'd finally gotten rid of him!"

"I'm not a dog," growled Anubis, glaring at Bast through Nico's eyes. They could tell it was him speaking because his accent changed. "But it seems like I'm a better watchdog for them than you are, scaredy-cat."

"Watch it, mutt," hissed Bast.

"You watch it," Anubis returned.

"It's good to be home," Sadie said, stretching her arms above her head and walking further into the house, satisfied that everything was back to normal, now that Anubis and Bast were at each other's throats again. "Why don't we call out for pizza? Have you eaten yet, Bast?"

"I'm getting a shower," Carter told his sister, starting toward his room. "Do _not_ let her talk you into ordering anything with anchovies on it."

"What's wrong with anchovies?" Bast wanted to know.

"You like them, that's what's wrong with them," grumbled Anubis, right before Nico seized control again. "If you want, Sadie, I could run out and grab us some hamburgers instead."

"Having hamburgers three times a day isn't good for you," Sadie told him.

"I haven't –"

"You have. I saw you, remember?"

Nico crossed his arms and pouted. "Like pizza's so much healthier."

"You're Italian. You're supposed to like pizza."

_"Che palle,_ stop applying your stupid stereotypes to me!"

"Stop interrupting my fight with the dog, you little twit!"

"I'm not a dog, you mangy alley-cat! Why don't you go and –"

Sadie couldn't hear the rest of what Anubis said over her own laughter as she picked up the cordless phone and the stack of takeout menus that they kept by it, and walked into another room so that she wouldn't have to listen to them arguing while she called in their order. It really was good to be home.

* * *

Three demigods (or alleged demigods) disappearing from camp didn't draw as much notice as it once would have. Probably because they weren't at war anymore. And probably also because one of those three demigods was Nico who came and went as he pleased. And because Sadie and Carter had been new to begin with and sometimes new campers did choose to leave on their own. Percy was just glad that a big deal wasn't being made out of it.

But he was a little worried the next day, when it was obvious that Nico and the Kanes were really gone, Chiron called him over after breakfast for a word. And he could tell by Chiron's expression that whatever his teacher had to say was serious.

"Is something wrong, Chiron?" he asked.

"Perhaps you can tell me that," said Chiron. "I know that you are close to Nico. I had thought you were the only one who was, until seeing him interact with those two Egyptian magicians that Clarisse and Brendan accidentally brought back to camp."

Percy cringed.

"You knew they were Egyptians, then," said Chiron. "But your expression tells me you're not alarmed by this."

Percy nodded. He could tell Chiron part of the truth without revealing everything to him. "I knew they were Egyptian magicians. We'd met before they came to camp."

"I see," said Chiron.

"Did you know what they were all along?" Percy wanted to know.

"I didn't notice at first," confessed Chiron. "With so many new demigods arriving since the war ended, I stopped paying overdue attention to the ones who I thought would be fine without it. But I noticed yesterday morning, after Karena's body was discovered. It would have been remiss of me not to look into the identities of two new campers who'd helped discover two bodies in as many days."

"Why didn't you reveal what you knew?" asked Percy.

Chiron smiled. "Because even though the House of Life has never gotten along with demigods, I felt like perhaps these two magicians were an exception. Clarisse and Brendan told me in their report how Sadie and Carter came to their aid when they were extracting Piper, Leo, and Maya. And it was clear that they were friends to both Nico and you."

"They are good friends," Percy said. "But they're not part of the House of Life."

"No?"

Percy shook his head. "They're fugitives from the House of Life who are trying to restore the old ways. Well, not completely restore them. And they're not interested in restoring old grudges with us or anything. But they are good friends to Nico. You remember when I had that dream about a month and a half ago, about Nico being in trouble?"

"Yes. I remember. I dismissed your worries." Chiron looked ashamed. "I see now that I was mistaken."

"Things worked out okay," Percy said quickly. "And Nico and I made some new friends. Sadie and Carter are good people. They watch out for Nico away from camp. That's why Nico got them out of here. He was worried what people would do to them if they found out what Sadie and Carter were."

"Probably a wise decision," said Chiron. "I'd like to think that our campers would be more open minded, but considering their treatment of him, I think that would be over-optimistic."

"Probably," agreed Percy.

"Well, that aside, I just wanted to make sure that everything was alright with Nico and those two," said Chiron. "And if you say all is well then I am satisfied."

"You don't have to worry about Nico when he's with those two," Percy assured his teacher. "You just have to worry about everyone else."

The End

* * *

AN: Yes, there will be a sequel. (I thought I'd mention that first since that's the most asked question right now.) I actually want to write a lot more stories in this AU. The next fic won't be written until after Throne of Fire comes out and I've had a chance to read it, because I want to try to keep the continuity of these fics as close as I can to the real Kane Chronicles. I read the preview chapter that was posted online and I see now that there are some new characters, Jaz and Walt, and after I learn more about them I want to do a fic about when they meet Nico for the first time. I have some other ideas too, but I want to see what happens in Throne of Fire first.

Thank you everyone for reading, and also thank you to TheAwesomesaucenessOfDa who referenced my fics in her story 'Fact Meets Fantasy'. Kudos to The Praisinator who also figured out who the killer was, and everyone else who figured it out too.


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